Location: San Marcelino, Zambales-Central Luzon Region

Founded/Organized:  1992

Type of business:  Family Business  

Number of Workers: 14 Male/Female: 4/10

People's Recovery, Empowerment and
Development Assistance Foundation, Inc.

The pumice stone is a product of the volcanic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo on the 13th of June 1991. Millions of tons of volcanic ashes and molten stone were blown 25,000 feet into the sky, shutting out the sun and causing almost total darkness at three o'clock on a sunny tropical day in the Philippines.

The volcano is 40 kilometers from the PREDA Center. The vast areas of the countryside for 20 kilometers around the base of the volcano were totally devastated by the ashes and lava that were thrown into the air by the eruption. These red hot burning blobs of lava that fell through the sky still releasing gasses cooled and formed pumice stones. The stones, some as big as a automobiles, others size of footballs and tennis balls, fell like rain during the three days of the most violent eruption.

Deep mountain gorges and valleys filled with white ash and stones. The once magnificent tropical landscape now resembled an arctic snow plain. Beneath the hot ash, molten lava moved slowly from the crater down the side of the volcano heating the ash and stones. When the typhoon rains came, valleys became massive rushing rivers of cement - like substance called "lahar" that swept along at forty kilometers per hour. Nothing could withstand the force of this hot boiling torrent. Houses were demolished in seconds; villages and churches were buried in matters of hours and days. Bulldozers were swept away like toys and many people perished. Others who fled before the eruption were homeless and jobless. Their villages, trees, rice fields and crops were buried under the rampaging lahar that continued to sweep from the sides of the volcano every year during the typhoon season.  Fertile plains were now sandy deserts of ash, pumice, sand and stones.

The survivors living in temporary shelters depend on relatives and friends whose land and business survived and began to get what they could from their land. There was nothing but pumice stones.

These survivors were still in the state of extended shock for two years after the lahar continued to flow, as it still does every year covering more land year by year. The traditional lives they had known from childhood were long gone. The landscape they once knew and played and worked on - was destroyed. The government spent billions of pesos excavating the river valleys to let the lahar continue to the sea. They built massive dikes on each side of the flow but it still broke through washing out roads and bridges. Each year after the typhoon season, they would rebuild the roads.

The peasants, small farmers and their families migrated to the towns and cities. Others stayed near relatives and familiar landmarks. They began working with the pumice stones, which they gathered from the valleys and dug out of the now - dry and desert - like landscape.

In 1992, PREDA started a producer group among the peasants. A small work shed was constructed, electric motors purchased and stones were gathered. The project was successful for the first six months and was gradually handed over to the group to manage themselves but after some months they were unable to continue as they mismanaged the finances and the quality of the products was very poor.

Then a middle class family, with money which they received from relatives working abroad, offered to refinance the project and manage it, promising to employ all the workers and pay a fair wage on a piece work basis. The workers agreed to this arrangement and were happy with it as they only wanted to get back to work and could not manage.

This producer group is close to the volcanic eruption area where they can gather stones and worked near their buried and now useless lands. There are 15 such workers working full time and another ten part time. They have a production capacity of 5000 pieces a month.

Pumice, the cinders of a volcanic furnace are composed of silica (used in skin powders) and sulfur and other minerals.

Level of partnership with PREDA: Marketing and Design assistance