The dream of the 10 people who grouped together in the Handmade Papermaking Group of the People's Economic Council of Salay Misamis Oriental, Philippines in 1987 was to form a Cooperative or a Foundation.

Lack of money in the form of equity and bank account prevented it from being so. Instead it was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as a Corporation in 1990. Its founding leader, Mrs. Loreta Rafisura, did so just to be able to secure a legal personality. Then, she learned from books what a Corporation is and how it functions.

The aspiration that its workers should be part owner of the company where they gave their time, talent and resources to was not shelved away. Salay Handmade Paper Industries Incorporated functioned as a Corporation with a Cooperative heart.

Through the years, 14 workers became stockholders by way of stocks salary or stocks bought from salary deduction. In 2003, its 14 stockholders own a little more than 15% of the capital stock. Mrs. Rafisura and her family has about a third of it. They, too are workers: Dr. Reynaldo G. Rafisura as its Chairman of the Board and Mrs. Loreta Rafisura as President. When their 3 children finished college they came in to help. Neil is its General Manager now. Loreen Marie was its Marketing Officer until she left for the US to work as a nurse and J. Emmanuel is now a member of the Board of Directors and its treasurer.

The social concerns of SHAPII have never been forgotten . Where there are activities in the town, province, region or in the national scene that concerns the development of the Filipino, SHAPII workers would be there too.

On July 3, 2000, the Salay Handmade Paper Industries Foundation, Inc. was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This formally separated the social arm of SHAPII from its business activities. It had 9 members, again composed mostly of the members of the family of Dr. Reynaldo and Mrs. Loreta Rafisura and children. With close relatives Pocholo Capistrano, Recolito Perocho , Fritz Hortelano and Alfonso Alamban. Members of the Administrative staff of SHAPII worked extra hours with it for very little compensation. In year 2002, all the other stockholders of SHAPII opted to be a member of the SHAPII Foundation with a minimum contribution of P100.00 per year. Now there are 60 people working together.

The primary aim of the Foundation is to have linkages and give scholarships to enable poor but deserving youth to pursue higher education.

It also wants to organize/ sustain or support livelihood projects so that rural folks can have an alternative source of income within the rural setting. It limits its scope primarily within the town of Salay.

Its first activity is the Alay-sa-Bata Program (Offering for the Child) which sponsors scholarships from the elementary to High School in the local Salay National High School. Alay-sa-Bata has committed to a $150.00-support-per-deserving-student, renewable every year until the child graduates from the 4 year secondary schooling. It deliberately does not intend to take all the financial responsibility from the parent as the Programme is conceived only as a grant-aid.

Amazingly this modest programme aimed at having only 12 scholars in 4 years grew too fast! There were just too many worthy applicants that we had to look for sponsors when the P100,000.00 yearly pledge of SHAPII from its profits was inadequate! 12 clients of SHAPII in foreign shores and friends of SHAPII within our circle willingly joined in! Now, in school year 2003-2004 we have 27 in the roster and 7 of them are in College.

The most significant networking we had was with Fr. Terry Barcelon S.J. of Xavier University's NKVS scholarship program that enabled 4 of the brightest students who graduated from Salay National High School to enroll for medicine and nursing course at the elite university for free this year!

Truly, we are holding on to our dream that the youth are our hope. The SHAPII Foundation is our legacy to the future.

When Vivien Carroll, who was connected with TVET in TESDA Region X of the Philippines, enabled us to receive a donation of 20 used computers from Swinburne University of Australia, the SHAPII Basic Computer Services was created in Salay in 2001. We shouldered about P120,000.00 for the freight of these computers given through TESDA.

We rented half a building next door to SHAPII office. A Reading Center with emphasis on contemporary magazines and books along with Craft and Pressed Flower Designs is alongside for free reading to everyone interested.

To date, SHAPII had trained 38 of its 350 workers to become computer literate on its own. Salay does not have internet or computer schools, so we devise our own modules, bought our own units as our export-oriented business prodded us to develop in IT or bust.

Realizing how much this would lead to a fast development for our town, we offered a Basic 36-hour-Introduction-to-Microsoft-Word-and-Excel course to the community. We were able to train 107 students all over the province of Misamis Oriental in a non-accredited course in year 2002.

In the field of Agriculture and Population activities, SHAPII has been active along with the Local Government Unit officials. Workers of SHAPII are actively involved in most Catholic Church affairs, too.

SHAPII Foundation's activities cover not only along the line of livelihood but also education, health, agriculture, information technology, population, values, and the youth….oh, just about anything that affects the development of our people! 

See also Alay-sa-Bata Program , Brochures and Cooperative.