The Handumanan social program of UNO-R started in 1993. It was spearheaded by an Augustinian Recollect friar, Fr. Antonio Palacios, OAR. Some years later, the project is entrusted to a community of Servants of Mary Sisters.
This coming July 1 will be the first anniversary of the arrival of the religious sisters to St. Ezekiel Moreno clinic. It is situated in barrio Handumanan, Bacolod, Negros, Philippines. This medical center formed part of the grandiose project which includes 100 residences or building houses as well as other community dependents: among them are a school for children, a vocational and technological center for adults and a church building.
The five assigned sisters occupied the second floor of the clinic building on may 31, 2010. They immediately renovated and painted the clinic and started their apostolate by visiting the residents of the barrio whose population reached more or less 39,000. Some of these sisters are nurses by profession and they were startled at the huge number of sick persons . With the assistance of the medical volunteers, they started a general medical check-up that includes dental, lungs and heart examination, analysis, x-ray, etc. Generally it is about medical consultation, walk-in cure or treatment as well as those that require two or three days of confinement.
Augustinian Recollect Support
St. Ezekiel Moreno clinic and the whole Handumanan project continues as part of the social outreach program of UNO-R and counts the full support from the Augustinian Recollects. Near their clinic is St. Ezekiel Moreno Monastery of the Augustinian Recollect contemplative nuns from whom the Servants of Mary Sisters get also the needed fraternal support. Both institutes live joyfully the fraternity which relates it to the early foundation of the Servants of Mary. After the first few years of adjustment and orientation, the congregation founded in Madrid by St. Mary Soledad Torres Acosta (1862-1887), was entrusted to the care of some Recollect friars who brought them to a good situation. St. Ezekiel himself (1848-1906) had contacts with the Servants of Mary Sisters and helped them in whatever way he could and also counted, in turn, on their assistance when necessary.