Our Mission

Our central mission at EVACE is to help improve the lives of the people in the Eastern Visayas region and their communities.  Although we began a foray into Haiti, with two EVTEC shipping containers installed on the Island of Gonave, political turmoil in the country has put an end to our expansion there for the time being.

Our goal is to give people the tools and skills to raise themselves out of poverty to live a brighter and more vibrant life; whether through better education or through medical aid which allows them to continue working and learning. We want to help ensure that new generations of Filipinos in remote areas don’t get left behind as the rest of the country progresses. We fear that if we don’t act quickly and efficiently to help the people band together to help improve their communities, the Eastern Visayas region and our home base of Pilar may become even farther disconnected from the outside world. We are passionate, inspired, and working hard to meet our goal

Our Approach

Other than our local EVTEC Computer Center facilitator, we are comprised of 100% volunteers, and all of our services are free to our clients. We believe in allowing people to focus on feeding their families and improving their lives instead of trying to find the means to pay us. We are not afraid to tackle any problem, big or small, and the vast array of backgrounds of our team members helps us to see all sides of an issue and to be well equipped to deal with unexpected challenges. Many of our members were also born in the region or on Ponson Island, so we are well acquainted with clients’ needs and how best to maneuver through red tape and obstacles. These local team members already have experience escaping the cycle of poverty and want to help their neighbors do the same. 

Our Impact

Unlike many charitable organizations that address the results of poverty, EVACE aims to overcome the root causes of it by helping people living on the margin gain the knowledge and skills required to more adequately and reliably earn a living. In the case of Ponson Island, the causes of poverty that we have identified are fourfold: a lack of accessible health care, a lack of marketable job skills, decreased fish populations, and low crop yields.  Like the rest of the Philippines, where over 10% of the population must find employment in other countries to provide for families back home, many Ponson Island residents must leave the island to make a living, leaving spouses and children behind.

Our programs address the two most transformable of these causes of poverty—health care and education. The Good Samaritan Medical Mission, for instance, serves over 2000 of the island’s neediest residents for free each year. With love, dedication and skilled medical care, founders Chip and Rhome Nuttall had been operating for years on a shoe-string budget, with financial support from churches in the US and Australia, and from funds out of their own pocket. By incorporating and joining forces with EVACE International, the mission has expanded the kind and amount of care it can provide, both on the island and through an ever-growing network of consulting physicians and support services on larger islands.

Striving for an impact beyond mere crisis intervention, the new partnership created EVTEC, the computer learning center that teaches basic computer skills, programming, and other marketable skills, and allows students to do school research, apply for universities and for jobs. We currently sponsor two island residents in nursing and medical technician programs, with the intention of employing them in the clinc upon completion of their degrees. Through these programs, we hope to offer opportunities limited only by the imagination.