Working Hands Discipleship and Vocational School

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On the edge of Manila, a littered path winds through mud, plastic bags and chickens to a scrubby strip of vacant land. Amid banana trees and tethered fighting cocks stands a bamboo hutch patched with rusting sheet metal. A piebald grey dog peeks from the dark doorway which a slim girl cooks on the open fire. Sonny’s mother stands in the slimy yard to greet her oldest boy, as children grin and peer from behind. Everyone wants to see Sonny.

Sonny Andora is a 21-year old mechanic working nearby in an open-air machine shop littered with disassembled heavy-duty trucks. He rebuilds diesel engines 6 days a week. He makes 7 a day. 5 of which comes home to his family, to send his brothers and sisters to school. Sonny has no place of his own, but his pastor lets him on a wooden bench in his local church.

On the bright side, Sonny qualified for his Auto Mechanics course at Working Hands because of his family’s conditions, and his active role in his local evangelistic church. Sonny now has a hope and a future, especially as he is applying with an agency to become an overseas worker, with multiplied pay and benefits.

Thirty-one young men are sharing Sonny’s hope as they are currently enrolled in Working Hands.

Working Hands offers Automotive, Wood Technology, and Computer Skills. The courses, sponsored and staffed by ACTION, are designed to build mental, emotional and spiritual maturity into Filipino youth by teaching them a viable, industry appropriate trade within a Christian community. The courses are open to physically and mentally fit Christian young men who are active in their home churches.