Discover. Experience. Enjoy STA. BARBARA, ILOILO

 Located just beside the church is one of the best preserved convents in Iloilo. Inside it has various shrines and gardens as well as a cemetery and a portion called "Avenue of Saints" lined with almost 20 statues of different .saints.  A visit at the second floor where the current priest and his helps reside can be specially arranged for big groups with the Municipal Tourism office at the Museum. There various collections can be seen as well as the "dungeon".  This structure along with the church is up for restoration by the National Historical Institute and is being planned to be converted into a museum, among others.  These stairs led to the second floor and is rumoured to have an entrance to a tunnel that goes al lthe way to the Tigum River a kilometer away.

WUTHLE Inc. is a project which turns bobbin lace-making and embroidery into a livelihood for women ex Hansenites (ex-lepers) and their skillful relatives. It stands for Women United Through Handcrafted Lace and Embroidery. It all started with a birthday gift, in 1985 to a Belgian ICM Missionary Sister, Madeleine Dieryck, who was working for and among Hansenites at the Western Visayas Sanitarium in Sta. Barbara, Iloilo. In gratitude, two young girls, both daughters of patients, gave her a self made, beautifully embroidered handkerchief.  Seeing the possibilities here, Sr. Madeleine requested them to embroider some more as tokens of gratitude to benefactors. These works were so much appreciated that orders came in. These two girls taught other women ex Hansenites as well as their relatives. And so the project grew.  In 1991, the attention of Sr. Madeleine went to many women, who, because of some deformities on their hands, could not hold a needle. While ...