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Intl group cites priest’s Payatas work
Sept. 3, 2007

A Filipino priest’s work among the poor of Payatas in Quezon City is one of the many projects worldwide that could be awarded US$1 million by the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based real-estate firm Opus Group.

Vincentian priest Norberto Carcellar is one of three Religious missionaries whose groups were chosen finalists for the 2007 Opus Prize faith-based humanitarian award.

In a statement released over the weekend, Washington-based Catholic University of America, in partnership with Opus Group’s The Opus Prize Foundation Inc., announced Fr. Carcellar’s inclusion among those to be honored “for their dedication to transforming the lives of others.”

Carcellar, a member of the Congregation of the Mission, was cited for leading nonprofit group Homeless People’s Federation Philippines (HPFP).

According to the statement, HPFP is an organization that has enabled squatters living on a sprawling garbage dump in Quezon City to create community savings and credit programs, purchase land, build housing and set up waste-disposal and water-distribution systems.

The Opus Prize is a faith-based humanitarian award given annually by its eponymous foundation “to recognize an unsung hero—either an individual or an organization—working on the frontlines of today’s most persistent social problems”.

Only one group will be awarded the $1-million prize while the two others will receive $100,000 each. The winner will be announced November 8 after all three finalists arrive in Washington, the statement added.

Though now in five cities, Carcellar’s group began expanding its organizational reach after July 10, 2000, when a pile of garbage collapsed and buried alive some 300 scavengers living and working near the dump.

Carcellar was then executive of the Vincentian Missionaries Social Development Foundation Inc., a nonprofit group that began work in Payatas in 1991.

Now, the federation he leads as executive director has over 20,000 member families “who are saving and who are either developing their own homes or seeking ways to do so.”

Privately-held Opus Group founded by philanthropic businessman Gerald Rauenhorst is a $1.4-billion real estate development company that currently has 24 million square feet in planning or development across the US.