ABOUT US

upwardupapoamf.org is the community website of the urban poor federation Alliance of People’s Organizations along the Manggahan Floodway (APOAMF). It was created for APOAMF by academics from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, the Ateneo de Manila University, Adamson University’s Saint Vincent School of Theology, and the De la Salle University under the project Urban Poor Women and Children with Academics for Reaching and Delivering on UNSDGs in the Philippines (UPWARD UP).

Serving as a space for community members to practice community journalism, it focuses on stories about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG) as they are experienced by the community. This is in line with the UPWARD UP project’s goal of encouraging members of the community to enhance their understanding of the 17 SDGs and their relevance to their everyday lives.

ABOUT APOAMF

The Alliance of People’s Organizations along the Manggahan Floodway (APOAMF) consists of 10 local People’s Organizations in Baranggay Manggahan, Pasig City. It was formed after Typhoon Ondoy struck in 2009, which caused massive floods that washed out homes of those living along Manggahan Floodway. These families were also facing threats of eviction and off-city relocation on a regular basis. 
Thus, the community sought help from the non-government organization Community Organizers Multiversity (COM) to help them resist these threats and present alternative housing proposals to the government. APOAMF was then born in 2010 from these efforts, advocating for housing rights by convincing authorities to use vacant and idle government land as residential areas for the urban poor. It worked with the National Housing Authority (NHA) to build LRB Manggahan Residences along East Bank Road, where around 900 families have moved into its first eight buildings.