LIVELIHOOD AND FORMATION. The eight beneficiaries of the Shoe-shine Project for Street People (SP4SP) take a pose with Fr Richard V Ella SJ and Street Tutorial Advocacy head Jerome Torres after the June 13 mass. Contributed photo. 

The Xavier University Chaplaincy Office, in partnership with the Street Tutorial Advocacy, relaunched its poverty alleviation and formation program for street dwellers of Plaza Divisoria called "Shoe-shine Project for Street People (SP4SP)" on Monday, June 13.

The reopening of the said program was made official during the early morning mass presided by outgoing university chaplain Fr Richard V Ella SJ at the University Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

For twenty pesos for a pair of shoes, SP4SP provides not just a profitable enterprise for the street dwellers, but also an opportunity to learn.

SP4SP aims to empower the beneficiaries by providing a decent place of livelihood, education through the tutorial sessions and Alternative Learning System, and spiritual formation; and by developing their skills in marketing and promotional strategies, customer care, and savings.

Another part of the program is the values development of the street dwellers through recollections, family counselling sessions, and teachings on Catechism, self-dignity and self-worth.

For this school year, Jerome Torres, head of the Street Tutorial Advocacy of XU, identified eight beneficiaries of the shoe-shine project.

The shoe-shiners will be stationed by the benches along the campus main lane with students, faculty and staff comprising their clientele. They are expecting more clients now that more people know about them from online posts. 

After the project’s successful run at Xavier, the organizers are currently negotiating with Lourdes College and Capitol University for a possible expansion of this program to their schools.

“May this endeavor of extending help to our poor brothers and sisters in the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy contribute to the effort of the Church to show the mercy and compassion of God in more concrete ways,” Ella said. ∎