Armed with sheer determination and dedication, Maj. Revilla brainstormed with Philippine Air Force colleagues how they could make their extended stay in the mission area more meaningful and fulfilling. They decided to empower Liberian women by sharing their cooking skills to unemployed housewives in impoverished communities in Monrovia.  

 

So in the morning of 11 August, Maj. Revilla, assisted by MSg Wilhelmino M Baral, MSg John I Roxas and Sgt Julius Enriquez, organized a cooking session with the objective of introducing recipes that can be easily concocted for home consumption and/or livelihood to help augment family income. A group of women from Freeport, Duala, and Congo town were not merely taught, they learned by actually doing the cooking.  They put together the ingredients, observed and followed cooking instructions.  Having learned three different ways of preparing rice porridge, they were so happy to share the arroz caldo (rice porridge with ginger or “congee”), champorado (sweet chocolate rice porridge), and guinataan with maize (sweet dessert with corn in coconut milk) to members of their families and neighbors who relished the food samples. The children, most especially, were so amazed with the yummy tastes that they kept going back to the queue. With basic ingredients that are locally available, the mothers happily agreed that this session will certainly go a long way in improving the quality of their life.

  

Conducted in Bushrod Island, the project was coordinated with the Coast Guard Base Community’s chairman, Sieh Togbor, who acknowledged the effort of the organizers in his closing remarks. In recognition of the project’s potential benefit to the women, he requested the Contingent Commander, Col. Fidel Igmedio Cruz, Jr., to extend the programme to nearby villages.