Jerik Cruz (MDEV '16; currently a PhD student at MIT) and Ace Dela Cruz (MDEV '17; now a global project coordinator at International Organization for Migration (IOM)) were the first Prix Pralong laureate team composed of developing-country nationals.
Resilience for Casiguran and Beyond: Our Prix Pralong Journey
When Jerik and Ace were studying at the Graduate Institute, the Philippine communities of Casiguran had been trying to recover from two consecutive typhoons in 2013 and 2015. The fallout from these catastrophes were dire as practically all of the inhabitant’s homes were destroyed or severely damaged, jeopardising the locals’ livelihoods. The town’s isolated location, separated from Manila by rainforests, mountains, and a 12-hour bus trip, made recovery efforts even harder.
Jerik and Ace had been acquainted with Casiguran’s dilemmas for some time. Starting in 2012, they were part of a national advocacy campaign to protect the human and land rights of Casiguran’s farmers, fisherfolk and indigenous peoples from the creation of a controversial special economic zone (this Al Jazeera documentary documents the townsfolk’s struggle). But the devastation wrought by the typhoons made them realise that there was far more they could still do to help hundreds of families rebuild their lives in an inclusive and resilient fashion.
In 2016, an opportunity to do so appeared with the Fondation Pralong’s Prix C. Pralong grant contest. In consultation with their local partners, they proposed a community-led initiative that would not only support the post-disaster recovery of Casiguran residents’ livelihoods, but also address one of the main causes of their poverty— their lack of power in dealing with traders and middlemen when selling their agricultural produce. By August, the news finally reached them: they had won the grand prize and were the first-ever Prix Pralong grantee team formed solely by developing country nationals.
With funding from the Fondation Pralong’s donors, and dedicated support by their partners, Jerik and Ace’s project cruised smoothly through implementation. Over the course of 2017, 12 communities and over 140 families in Casiguran received climate-resilient seedlings, training modules in sustainable organic agriculture, as well as household financial management. In early 2018, this was followed by the creation of a new marketing cooperative and the construction of a community market to provide local producers with fairer prices for their produce by cutting out the previous middlemen.
Their paths since the project have led them to explore very different ways of contributing to global development.
After serving as a lecturer in economics and development studies at the Ateneo de Manila University, Jerik began a doctoral programme in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been awarded an MIT Presidential Fellowship. Parallel to his PhD studies, he has been collaborating with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Philippines’ Department of Interior and Local Government for crafting data-driven policy responses for Philippine local governments to the COVID-19 pandemic. He remains active in social movements for environmental justice, and is providing pro-bono expert support to indigenous peoples seeking to protect their ancestral domains from a controversial mega-dam project in the Philippines.
In the last semester of his masters, Ace landed a job at the IOM - UN Migration Agency. He currently serves as a Project Coordinator where he manages global and regional initiatives on migrant integration, with a focus on promoting social cohesion between migrants and local communities, combating xenophobia and addressing structural discrimination. He also worked previously at the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) as a Communications Programme Officer, working primarily on promoting balanced narratives on migration through digital media and intergovernmental dialogue. Outside of his work, Ace volunteers for a Filipino diaspora organisation.
It has been over five years now since they started their Prix Pralong journey with their community partners, but they have both, in their own ways, worked to bring greater inclusion and resilience to communities at home and abroad. “We thank the local communities of Casiguran for continuing to inspire us, as well as to the Graduate Institute and the Fondation Pralong for the support that has allowed us to grow into better development partners for the poor and marginalised”, they said.
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