The project was conceptualized by Lars C. Jorgensen and Monica D. Ray during their first visit to the Philippines.
1994
SFI established a formal partnership with the Baguio Arts Guild, from where we recruited young artists as facilitators for some of the many creative workshops we held. We also initiated a close partnership with a Manila based drop-in center, Tanglaw ng Kabataan (TNK), and started to operate as a rupture center for particularly disadvantaged street children, who needed to be distanced from a life-threatening street environment. In the middle of the year, we received the first external funding for the programs from DANIDA. Until then, all developments and programs were entirely financed by the founders. In that same year, SFI responded to a local natural disaster, when a strong earthquake hit Mindoro, killing about a hundred people and leaving tens of thousands homeless. Our focus was on play and art related therapeutic intervention for the many child survivors in the evacuation centers.1993
The creative camps and workshops developed further and reached more than 400 child beneficiaries over the year. Our network was expanded with another 5 Manila-based agencies working with children living on the streets, and we registered Stairway Foundation Inc. (SFI) under the Securities and Exchange Commission, with Human Rights Lawyer Johannes Ignacio as chairperson. Later during the year, we founded our Danish sister organization, Stairway Denmark, with Christian Lund as the founding chairperson. We also wrote and submitted our first proposal to an international funding agency, namely the Danish International Development Assistance (DANIDA). We had our first advocacy presentations at Roedkilde Gymnasium in Denmark, which led to the school committing to officially support the Stairway Project. Around 500 students spent one or more days doing various jobs and all sorts of creative initiatives to collect money for the project. This marked the beginning of a long and ongoing partnership between Roedkilde Gymnasium and Stairway, which has raised millions of pesos over the years. The students from Roedkilde secured the first infusion of external funding into the project at a very crucial time. Until then, all developments and programs were entirely financed by the founders. The overwhelming engagement and support from the hundreds of students from Roedkilde was a huge inspiration and became the beginning of Stairway’s Youth for Change Program.1992
Development of the site continued as we formed our first local partnership with Kaibigan, a Manila-based street children organization. During their first visit to Stairway, Kaibigan brought 75 children for a camp. The Stairway became a resort for children and staff from our partners in Manila, where both small and big people could find respite from the city's chaos and pick up inspiration and motivation for further development. With the abundant exposure to nature and a wide range of visual and performance arts activities, Stairway had already found its niche in the network of organizations working for street children.1991
Initial construction of the center with help from friends and volunteers continued. Everything was built using lightweight materials, such as bamboo, coconut wood, and straw, for roofing. The carpenters were all local, and the indigenous men participated in the construction under the natural rule of equal work, equal pay, which was upsetting the status quo of labor practices in the community.1990
After their first visit in 1988, the founders had saved enough capital to move to the Philippines in April 1990 to begin the construction of the center. Friend and architect Christian Lund, who spent 3 to 5 months at the center every year during the initial period, took care of the design.
