NEWS & UPDATES

MAKIBATA ’06 Booth Opens This Sunday

The Barkadahan Ni Sto. Domingo, organizers of MAKIBATA, will set up a MAKIBATA Booth along the Sto. Domingo Church corridor starting November 5, 2006. This area will be open every Sundays of November and December, from 6am -12 pm, and at 4pm-7pm. A Christmas Tree will also be positioned beside the booth to cater the Tala Fund Raising Project.

Interested sponsors, donors and foster parents may approach any Barkadahan member stationed at the booth. Toys, canned goods and monetary support may also be donated.

JOIN MAKIBATA’s FRIENDSTER ACCOUNT

MAKIBATA 2006 is now on Friendster! You may view the latest updates, throw in inquiries, and request for promotional materials to the organizers via web. Fellow Barkadahan members, Youth Organizations, affiliates and everyone interested to help are also encouraged to join.
Add us up: [email protected] or to have a quick view on the site, visit www.friendster.com/makibata.

 

For Inquiries of donation,please contact:
Mako Miranda
Sto. Domingo Parish Office :
+(632) 743-77-56
Cellphone No.: +63915-5638291
Email: [email protected]

It has been a tradition of the Barkadahan Ni Santo Domingo, a choir and youth organization of Sto. Domingo Parish, Quezon City, to have a gift-giving project held every 28th of December (Holy Innocents Day) dubbed as MAKIBATA and is intended for 100 indigent children from the Sto. Domingo Parish and nearby places. The main goal of this project is for the less fortunate children to feel the true meaning of Christmas.

In line with this, the Barkadahan Ni Sto. Domingo community is selling colored lanterns made of yantok to raise funds for the MAKIBATA 2006. In return, those who buy these lanterns will be given a chance to hang them on a christmas tree at the parish with their names on it.

A SHORT HISTORY OF MAKIBATA

Listen to what children say about Christmas:

“Ang Pasko ay masaya kung may regalo, may bagong damit, may bagong sapatos, may laruan, may masarap na pagkain, may Santa Claus, may ninong at ninang…”

For the grown-ups, we say there are more than these. Christmas is JESUS – who came to give joy, love and peace to the world. CHRISTMAS is therefore, a season of loving, giving and sharing especially with the poor and of course - the CHILDREN.

Thus, the BARKADAHAN NI SANTO DOMINGO (BNSD) founded by Rev. Father Sonny Ramirez, conceived MAKIBATA in December 1976. Yearly, MAKIBATA continually benefit 100 children from depressed areas of Sto. Domingo Parish and nearby places.

Every December 28 (Holy Innocents Day) as early as 7:00 am, the kids are gathered at the Sto. Domingo Church. For each kid, a foster parent is assigned to look after him for the whole day. After a Holy Mass, the children are brought to the zoo, a carnival for free rides or to a shopping mall where they are bought clothes and other basic needs as their “aguinaldo”. Games and fun filled activities are also lined for them. At the end of the day, they are given a basketful of goods for their family.

But MAKIBATA’s compassion for indigent children extends outside Manila. It was also brought to Pampanga in 1991 and 1995 as an outreach project to the families left homeless due to the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. In 1996, MAKIBATA reached out to the residents of Marillac Hills Institution in Alabang, Metro Manila where about 250 physically and sexually abused children are cared for.

This year, we plan to bring MAKIBATA once again to the indignent children within the Parish of Sto. Domingo, Quezon City. However, MAKIBATA’s success can only be attributed to the generosity and untiring support by its benefactors – YOU. May the Lord reward your generosity a hundredfold!