The Big Kuya Project (Kuya means brother) of our club started last December 2006. Sitio Kabulusan is one of the most depressed areas in the Philippines. People in this community would often fall in a state of lethargy, accompanied by occasional gambling, gossiping, and alcoholism (even at the wee hours of the morning). Most women of Sitio Kabulusan are stay-at-home moms, while fathers work as carpenters, construction workers, taxi, jeepney, and pedicab drivers. Their blue-collared jobs could not afford them a decent home. They live in frail, wooden houses besides a creek. Learning about this situation and environment, we wondered how do the children adopt and live a normal life. Moreover, who are their role models? What kind of values do they get? Do they deserve all of this? After making a survey and gathering information, our organization, the Rotaract Club of Manila Metro, decided to provide the children lessons on character education. We asked the help of their barangay to give us a list of children ages 8-12-years-old that were willing to come for Saturday lessons on character education. At first, there were only twenty (20) children: girls and boys who voluntarily participated in our story-telling sessions and other activities. After two weeks, our list grew bigger—from twenty (20) to thirty five (35) children. But since the area didn’t have a bigger venue to accommodate all these children, we decided to do our lessons in a basketball court beside the creek.

Every Saturday, we would walk for 15-20 minutes to reach the place. We do this to remind ourselves that every step we take is a journey towards our dream to give the children of Kabulusan a better community and a better future. From September 2007 to February 2008, we committed ourselves to teach character education to thirty five (35) children of Sitio Kabulusan. For an hour and a half, we teach these children lessons on respect, love for self, God and others, generosity, gratitude, cooperation, trust, honesty, truthfulness, humility, patience, teamwork, goal setting and responsibility. We became Ates (Big Sisters) and Kuyas (Big Brothers) to these children. We divided the class for boys and girls to accommodate all 35 children: 5 female Rotaractors as the girls’ big sisters and 8 male Rotaractors as the boys’ big brothers.

The BIG Kuya Project is one of the projects of the Rotaract Club of Manila Metro, District 3810, Philippines. The Project started as an outreach program of a prestigious school in Alabang Muntinlupa Philippines. Since its eventual decline that led to the outreach program's extinction, its previous moderator decided to bring the idea to the community level and met with the Rotaract Club of Manila Metro RI District 3810 Philippines. Having done the needs assessment for the community. The club decided to give the kids of the community role models - a Big Brother or a Big Sister that will guide them to form and strengthen their character, principles and values. Given their environment and their status in life, it is a constant struggle for kids to have a firm character. The goal of this project is to help children and young adults living in depressed areas to have a deeper understanding, motivation, and responsibility with regards to making personal and social choices by providing them with character education and personal formation. We believe that by providing them classes in character formation and by giving a little of our time makes a BIG impact to the lives of these children. By showing them that we care, we can give them hope and chance to fulfill their dreams. The impact that we made is immeasurable but little changes that we see in the kids makes our hearts humble. Their voluntary attendance is enough reason for us to see that maybe we must have done something right. The kids voluntarily attend the classes and every Saturday (scheduled class) their excitement and commitment to the class motivates us to do our best. On our part as teachers and volunteers, the impact this project made changes us in ways we could not imagine, being immersed in the realities of life made us realize how fortunate we are. The experience humbled every member’s heart, and motivated us to break away from our comforts just to serve and devote our time to the kids of the community. The gravity of change that this project generated is tremendously amazing. It’s more that just teaching, its Hope. Hope for a better community, better society, a better world

Anyone who wants to make a difference, who believes in his talents and has a genuine love, understanding and care for others. We are encouraging everyone to support us in this activity through the following: A. Be one of the Kuya or Ate (Big Brother or sister) 1. If you are a college student or young professional, join us, the Rotaract Club of Manila Metro. 2. If you are a high school student, join our Rotaractors to Be(R2B) or soon to be the Interact Club of Manila Metro. We are going to have an orientation seminar, team buildings and trainings this summer. B. You may also send in donations in cash or in kind. The children would really appreciate it if we can give them books, educational toys, school bags and/or school supplies for the next school year. C. If you are a member of another organization, we can also be your partner in service feel free to add us up kuya_kbc@yahoo.com