Holt International CEO and President Phil Littleton is currently touring Holt’s programs in Southeast Asia and Korea, visiting the children and families we serve.  Today, Holt’s creative services director, Brian Campbell, describes their visit to a childcare center in the Philippines where Holt helps to support orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children through child sponsorship. Holt also works to find loving adoptive families for eligible children in care.

Manila, Philippines — Today, Holt International President and CEO Phil Littleton and I are heading out of Metro Manila to visit an outlying childcare center where Holt helps to support many of the children in care through child sponsorship.

Joining us on today’s visit is Eva Cubacub, a social worker from Kaisahang Buhay Foundation (KBF), Holt’s longtime partner in the region. Eva knows the children well at this orphanage, as she has made several trips to visit children in Holt’s sponsorship program. Some of the children are also in process to join families through adoption.

A warm, steady rain falls as we leave the city, and we watch as people on the streets dart from one covered porch to another. "Oh, it looks like an early spring for the Philippines,” says Eva as she looks up at the flannel gray skies.

Away from the traffic of Metro Manila, we come to a quiet building that looks like an old mission school, with Spanish arches, tile roofs and stucco and brick construction. A birthday party is taking place – not for one of the children in care, but for a little boy from the community who has decided to celebrate with the children in this orphanage. It's lunchtime and the children eat quickly as they spy the big cake being cut into generous pieces.

Eva stands near a pretty little girl sitting apart from the other children. "Are you the one who picked up my friend?" asks the girl in a small, sweet voice. Surprised, Eva gets down to 6-year-old Christina's* eye level and asks, "What do you mean?"

"Did you take my friend home?" says Christina.