Despite the ravages of storms, seaweed farming is transforming the lives of Filipino families in traditionally male-dominated fishing communities, turning women into family breadwinners who are paying for their children to go to college.

The Cherish Fisherfolk Cooperative of 120 seaweed farmers in the Palawan village of Balintang is named after the 1984 hit “Cherish” by U.S. band Kool & the Gang.

“Cherish means to protect and care for what we have,” Mardy Montaño, president of the cooperative, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as she rested after a day’s work on a floating house in the midst of Palawan’s turquoise waters.