A warm Manila welcome

On Monday the 11th of May, I departed from Amsterdam to Taipei, Taiwan. The flight was long but comfortable. After a fuel stop in Taipei, we took off for Manila!!!

At 18:20 I arrived in Manila, took a taxi to the hotel and had a nice dinner with Dean and Jordi. Due to the time difference, sleeping proved to be difficult; I fell asleep at 4 and had to get up again at 7.
In the morning, together with all my fellow IWitness participants Nayana, Shambhavi, Damien, Dean, Jordi, Julia (from Save the Children Australia) and I had breakfast. Here Dean also introduced us to IKEA Teddy, a soft toy from IKEA Perth, who we instantly embraced as our ambassador for this trip.

At nine we were picked up by Kate and Lori, and we went over to Save the Children’s national office in Makati. At the office, several presentations were given to us about Save the Children’s work in the Philippines.

We met a lot of staff. Most of the presentations were interesting but a bit technical for me and required more background information.

The past two days have been one huge exciting experience. Travelling alone for the first time to Asia was fantastic; the people we met are lovely, warm and kind, and the food is amazing! I am excited to see more of the field visit in the coming days to see more IKEA Foundation-funded Save the Children projects.
