Seven hundred thousand homes and seven communities in all. Time line: Seven years. This is GK 777. This was the original goal. By 2010, Gawad Kalinga must have attained its vision: a slums-free Philippines.

Latest update. More than 850 GK villages - 50 to 100 houses in each village - now rise in previous slum areas and unoccupied land tracts all over the Philippines. Not yet halfway through the 700,000 goal. But it is getting there. More heroes must step forward!

The news. Gawad Kalinga Community Foundation and its executive director, Tony Meloto, each received a Ramon Magsaysay Award - Asia’s equivalent to the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize - for ‘Community Leadership’ during presentation ceremonies on August 31st at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CPP) in Manila.

This is the call. This year’s only organization to receive a Ramon Magsaysay Award is calling more Filipinos and Filipino Americans to come forward and each take a role in the huge task of rebuilding the Philippine nation by turning its slums into villages consequently uplifting the plight of the poor kababayans who have long wallowed in hopeless state of poverty.

For those who wish to heed this call, and perhaps be interested in becoming part of the work, here is how this new generation of Filipino heroism begins.

Gawad Kalinga (GK), the housing arm of Philippine-based Couples For Christ catholic community organization, came to existence in 1995 through the headship of Tony Meloto - the driving force behind the GK vision of a ‘Philippines without slums.’

GK started its work in Bagong Silang, the Philippines’biggest Squatter’ relocation community that was home to half-a-million residents living in poor condition in a single barangay.

To fill in the financial gap in transforming Bagong Silang, GK solicited the support of four donor countries: Australia, Canada, North California and Germany; as well as several local donors led by the Filipino Chamber of Commerce. Through these donors - now called GK partners - Bagong Silang transformed into beautiful and peaceful communities. From the previous shanty-filled and dirt-ridden barangay now rises a village filled with red, yellow, green and blue concrete houses standing alongside cemented roads and pavements instead of canals and mud. This endeavor of sharing and building together through bayanihan system for the first time witnessed an unlikely scenario: the rich (presidents, CEOs and executives of top corporations) working side-by-side with the country’s ‘poorest of the  poor’ among them former gangsters in the area who, because of the GK team’s genuine show of care and concern, also transformed from being threats to society into productive citizens.

Thanks to the donors, the work in Bagong Silang was completed. GK then moved on to build more villages. Consequently, more and more people - Philippine-wide - are being pulled up one after the other from their miserable existence in slum environments and housed into decent homes in clean, beautiful surroundings. What followed was that a growing number of people’s lives were renewed while dignity, hope and abandoned dreams eventually restored.

Through GK, more slum areas inhabited by garbage scavengers, drug addicts/pushers, gamblers and troublemakers turned into peaceful and beautiful villages. The once ghetto-considered areas like Smokey Mountain, Payatas, Brookside and Baseco were transformed into GK Smokey Mountain Village in Tondo, Manila; the Blue Eagle GK Village in Payatas, Quezon City; the GK Brookside Village in Brgy Silangan, Quezon City; and the GK Baseco Village, also in Tondo, Manila.

All these efforts of turning Philippine slum areas into villages using practically the builders own hands and resources: money, time, skills and talent caught national attention.

Soon the business sector noticed and joined in. They then started sponsoring their own villages giving rise to the following: GK Philips Village in Calamba, Laguna (Philips Philippines); GK Jollibee Village in Las Pinas City (Jollibee Foods Corporation); GK Alaska Village in San Pablo, Laguna (Alaska Milk Corporation); UnionBank GK Adlas Villages in Silang, Cavite (UnionBank); McDonald?s GK Village in Taytay, Rizal (McDonald?s); Prudentialife GK Village in Baseco, Quezon City (Prudentialife); RFM GK Village in Mandaluyong (RFM Corporation); SMART Amazing GK Village in Baseco, Tondo, Manila (SMART/PLDT); SPI-Springer Sunshine Village in Brgy Moonwalk, Paranaque (SPI Technology); FedEx Gawad Sibol schools in Subic, Quezon City, Paranaque, Bacolod City, and Sultan Kudarat (FedEx); Citigroup-GK Villages in Tandang Sora and Coastal Road (Citigroup) and Good Life Village in Baseco, Tondo, Manila.