Eleuterio Bravo, founder of Filo D'Oro, says the sewers were endorsed to him by different religious organizations in Cebu. Most of them do not want to go to school and opt to look for jobs, he adds. BEGINNING
The partnership between Filo D'Oro and Cobonpue started with the friendship of Bravo, a native of Pangasinan who has since made Cebu his home, and the furniture designer in the early 1990s.
Bravo first went to Cebu as the youth coordinator of the Focolare Movement, of which Cobonpue is an active member. (The Focolare Movement, founded in 1944 in Trent, Italy, as a Catholic lay organization, has grown into an ecumenical spiritual organization now found in 182 countries. It promotes unity and universal brotherhood among different Christian denominations and those of Jewish faith, according to its website http://www.focolare.org.) As Focolare members, Bravo says he and Cobonpue worked together organizing concerts and other activities to raise funds for the group's projects.
?We became good friends and we thought of organizing projects that will help the youth,? said Bravo, who studied design in Florence, Italy, in the 1980s. Bravo formed a group that sewed school and tournament uniforms, bags and T-shirts in the early 1990s. By the time the World Youth Day was held in the Philippines in 1994, Bravo was asked to return to Manila and help in the preparations. PARTNERSHIP
The link with Cobonpue's company came in the form of throw pillows.
?Furniture pieces need throw pillows so Kenneth said, ?Why don?t we supply the throw pillows?? From there, we moved on to produce the cushion for small furniture items like that of the dragnet lounge chair,? From a simple philanthropic endeavor, a business partnership with the Cobonpues was established. In 2009, they moved to the ancestral house of the Cobonpues in Lahug and set up their own production area. Bravo says he has a team of hardworking people who know how to save materials. Ortiz is in charge of determining the materials to be used for the cushions and throw pillows. ICI creative director Estela Ocampo-Fernandez says the company likes Filo D?Oro because its employees make full use of the materials provided to them. ?They economize and save materials,? Bravo says discipline and brotherhood are values inculcated among the young men for them to do their work well.
