Danilo is a fisherman from Panay Island in the Philippines. Growing up impoverished, he had no chance to get an education and began fishing for a living at 12 years old.

Fishing is the only livelihood he’s known, so he was devastated when Typhoon Haiyan destroyed his boat as it swept through the Philippines in 2013.

ADRA provided boat repair materials to close to 600 fishermen so that they could get back to work and recover their livelihood.

With his background and limited resources, Danilo has experienced many difficulties, and he does not want his children to share what he went through. His belief is that a person who doesn’t finish school needs to work extra hard to take care of his family.

“With 38 years in the fishing industry, I have been able to send my four children to school,” said Danilo. “Two of them have already earned their college degrees.”

It’s this determination that wouldn’t let him give up as he saw his boat, his entire source of support for his family, broken into pieces. It was incredibly hard to pay for his children’s education without an income coming in. Hundreds of other fishermen suffered the same fate.

ADRA introduced a Boat Repair Assistance Grant (BRAG) program to help Danilo and 562 other fishermen rebuild their livelihoods by providing repair materials to reconstruct their damaged fishing boats, nets, and other necessary equipment.

“ADRA has empowered fishermen like me by bringing back our livelihoods so we can feed our families and send our children to school. I am very happy and excited that ADRA provided boat repair materials,” said Danilo.

Danilo is already using his repaired boat and now earns 450 pesos ($10) a day. This is close to his pre-typhoon daily earnings of 500 pesos ($11) and much more than the 200 pesos ($4.50) a day he struggled to support his family with in the three months following Haiyan.