MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
CRIBS Foundation Inc.

They cry in the dark so you can’t see their tears
They hide in the light so you can’t see their fears
Forgive and forget
Love and pain
Become one and the same
In the eyes of a wounded child….

From the book, Live from Earth
Pat Benatar

Many among us agree that one of the most beautiful and wondrous creatures is the face of a child--each one unique and disarming, unaffected and full of hope. A child’s heart is no other—has room for everything, enjoys and loves everything around them.

But abandonment, neglect and abuse can change all that. Being abandoned, neglected and abused is betraying the vulnerability of the child who depend on adults for the love, care and security that they need to be grow and develop into the person they can become. Neglect and abuse are damaging to the child—to their self-concept and self-esteem, their relations to others and their hope for the future.

CRIBS’ origins is an accident in destiny. Wives of two Lutheran missionaries in the Philippines in 1974 did not have the heart to abandon, for the second time, two infants born and left on their own by their biological parents. These two women provided these abandoned and neglected infants the home that they needed and deserve. Thus, the name Creating Responsive Infants by Sharing, CRIBS for short. From then on, they took more infants that were abandoned, neglected or even surrendered by their own birth parents and provided the loving environment for them to grow and become the persons that they are created to be. CRIBS in its nascent years was a receiving home for these children.

In 1986, the issue of abuse children came up. Abuse, in any form—physical, sexual, verbal, emotional—leave children wounded and scarred, traumatized and violated. CRIBS gave birth to its new beginnings program specifically for its sexually abused girls who have yet to explore and discover their sexuality and humanity.

Receiving Home and New Beginnings are the two pillar programs of CRIBS. Sources indicate that 98% of victims of intra-family or domestic abuse are females, one-third of whom are children below 17 years old, and more than half of which are perpetuated by their own fathers, uncles, grandfathers, brothers or stepfathers.

In the Philippines, four children are born every minute—one of whom shall end up being abandoned, neglected or surrendered for reasons that are associated with extreme poverty or strained relations among members of immediate family. Those babies abandoned or voluntarily surrendered babies often end up in a welfare institution like CRIBS that either provides a temporary shelter and residential care until such time that they will be adopted by a family they can call their own, or grow up and mature in an institution with other orphans. Those neglected are often those that grow up in a “normal” family but end up spending more time in the streets and in increasing numbers, getting into conflict with the law, or are trafficked or prostituted in brothels.

It is for these children that CRIBS has realized the urgency and accepted the challenge of building a new social order, and of defining a family-- free from any form of abuse, exploitation or neglect that is prejudicial to their development, recognizes and more actively works for the exercise of their rights as human beings to attain their full humanity.

Through the 28 years of existence of CRIBS, it has grown to enhance its residential care and program for abandoned, neglected and surrendered children (from birth to about 2 years old), and sexually abused girls (from 7-17 years old) with an advocacy and campaign for the promotion of alternative forms of caring for a child by a family (other than its birth family) and the prevention of abuse against women and children.

We welcome you to CRIBS Family. Join us in our efforts to make life more humane and just for the many children who are left homeless, loveless due to poverty, and girls who are wounded and scarred by the trauma of abuse . Together let us make alive our dreams and aspirations for a bright and hopeful tomorrow for our children. Through this website, let us get to know each other more so we can come together more often as partners.