Mrs Virgenia Vidad is the Project Coordinator for the 'Pedalling to Live and Green Shelter' programme in Ozamiz City, in the Philippines. She is married with two young children. After working for six years with Columban Sisters at the 'Community of Hope', a home for the hearing impaired, she then began working in October 2004 with Columban Fr Oliver McCrossan alongside the 'Pedalling to Live Programme'.
In the following interview with 'The Far East' magazine, Virgenia tells us how this programme has helped tricycle drivers and their families, who are among the poorest people in Ozamiz City, escape poverty.
Seventy percent of all the vehicles on the streets of Ozamiz City are tricycles. Travelling by tricycle is by far the cheapest way to get around the city. Different surveys have shown however that the tricycle drivers and their families are some of the poorest people in the whole of the city. Tricycle drivers leave home around 4:00am each morning to start work and continue to work until around 7:00pm. Rain or shine, being sick or in good health, the drivers must go to work every day to be able to support their families.
Most of the tricycle drivers and their families live in small rented rooms in slum areas near the sea. These small rooms serve as dining, living and bedrooms for the four to six members of the family. During high tide, the water reaches the floor level of the houses, making it both dangerous and unhealthy for the families.
On average, a tricycle driver earns between AUD/NZ$5 to $6 dollars each day. Of this amount, he must pay between $1 and $2 dollars daily to the businessman who owns the tricycle and rents it out. This leaves very little money left to help the family get out of the cycle of poverty and provide better nutrition, health and educational opportunities for their families.
How did the 'Pedalling to Live Programme' begin?
When Columban Fr Oliver McCrossan became aware of this situation, he decided to try to do something about it. With the help of friends who sponsored the programme, he began by acquiring tricycles and renting them out to the drivers at a much lower daily rental rate than the businessmen. If the drivers paid the rental fee for a two year period, they would then become the owners of the tricycle.
Since the programme began in 2004, over 100 tricycle drivers have become the proud owners of their tricycles and thus were freed from the burden of having to pay a large portion of their tiny income to someone else in order to work and be able to provide for their families.
One of our goals from the very beginning was to give the wives of the tricycle drivers opportunities to improve their lives by becoming more independent and able to contribute to the families income. We have offered them training on different ways to generate income for their families.
We have helped them set up backyard vegetable gardens, piggeries and chicken coops and thus help them be able to sell to different organizations organic fertilizer, banyan saplings and vegetables from their gardens.
Some of the wives are engaged in the production and sale of doormats and in the buying and selling of rice at a small profit. Every Saturday we offer the children fun and games and a good nutritious meal, something many of them are lacking in. We strongly encourage them to do everything possible to complete their education.
Do you have any other projects in operation?
In 2010, we were able to begin the Green Shelter Housing Programme which so far has offered 14 families of Tricycle drivers new homes, built out of cheap local but strong materials such as clay, rice hulls and hay. These homes are well built and can withstand heavy rain. 
We have two immediate goals. Firstly to buy a quarter of a hectare of land on which to build five new Green Shelter homes for five families of tricycle drivers.
Secondly, we hope to buy 40 new tricycles so that 40 of the poorest drivers will be able to enter the programme of working to pay off their tricycle after two years.
Through drivers being able to eventually own their own tricycles along with their wives and families participating in other income generating schemes, many families have been able to increase their income by at least 50%.
In this way, we are helping to reduce poverty and help families escape from poverty.
Read more from The Far East, May 2014