The founder of Gawad Kalinga, Tony Meloto, "will come straight from a meeting with the French president to the Apollo Estate", according to the organisation's Australian director of domestic programs, Andrew Chalk, who will accompany Mr Meloto during the visit. Gawad Kalinga (meaning "give care" in Filipino) chose the Apollo Estate as its first Australian-based project, indeed, the first outside a developing country, Mr Chalk said.

Since then Gawad Kalinga representatives had been meeting with residents to hear their vision for the community and to discuss ways to help them achieve it.

Gawad Kalinga volunteers first travelled to Dubbo at the invitation of local elder "Riverbank" Frank Doolan to begin building relations with the local community.

Mr Chalk said empowering public housing residents to achieve home ownership was one of the project's more tangible goals.

Volunteers were an essential part of a long-term process, Mr Chalk said, and small projects such as doing up nature strips in front yards, landscaping houses and getting crews together to help people who were unable to do their own gardens were small gestures that could mean a lot.

"Mr Meloto is coming to Australia for the sole purpose of meeting with people in the Apollo Estate, to understand the issues affecting them and to help provide suggestions to Gawad Kalinga Australia," Mr Chalk said.

"He's a person who has found a solution to poverty in a country that faces immense challenges.

"The challenges we have in Australia are in a sense not as great but are certainly entrenched.

"We are desperately in need of new ways of thinking about how to address our situation.

"Having Mr Meloto come to Australia is a symbol of the hope we can do things better.

"And there is certainly a lot we can learn from developing countries that we have, perhaps, ignored in the past."