Zonta Club of Makati and Environs

GRACE TO BE BORN

THE HAVEN OF GRACE

Finding out you are pregnant can be overwhelming and scary for any young woman. Young and single mothers face the added stress of knowing that most children, especially girls born out of unwanted pregnancy, would face the same problems later in life. The place where you grow up isn’t always your home. A place where you feel safe and loved is where your home is. This is the case for the young pregnant and unwed women in dysfunctional relationships who have found their home in “Grace To Be Born” Maternity Home and Nursery. Established in May 2009 by Bo Sanchez, Rey Ortega, Basti and Betty Roxas-Chua, this temporary shelter located at 53 Dr. Sixto Antonio Avenue, Brgy. Kapasigan, Pasig City serves as home to women and babies in crisis, seeking a second chance at life. Instead of getting an abortion or abandoning the children, the “Grace To Be Born” Home provides an alternative for women to receive the care they need, and put their infants in nurturing homes that is made available to them by a child-caring agency within this halfway house. Aside from the stigma of unwanted pregnancy, a woman can resort to abortion if she cannot afford to raise her child. Through the livelihood skills and training sessions that “Grace To Be Born” provides, teenage mothers can earn an income to support her child once she leaves the shelter. They also receive counseling, medical care, and most especially, spiritual nourishment through a pastoral program to prepare them for a life of dignity after their ordeal. On its advocacy on teenage-pregnancy prevention and the fight against abortion, ZCME, through the years, has sponsored several symposiums and forums on early pregnancy, presented by notable speakers of which one of the very first was by “Grace To Be Born” executive director Sister Ester Palacio. Since the beginning of its operation in 2006, “Grace To Be Born” has been surviving merely on donations by individual persons or groups like ZCME, that is continuously donating money, foodstuff, milk, diapers, and other baby-and-pregnant women’s needs to sustain the shelter’s mission. Proving that helping marginalized women and girls is part of ZCME’s DNA, “Grace To Be Born” was clearly destined to be one of the organization’s chosen beneficiaries.

GALLERY

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