Ulingan, Tondo - Scavenging
To this boy, this is his home and playground. This is his family source of income. This is what the whole family survives on.
For years young and old work the charcoal factory collecting wood and burning them into charcoal. Yes life is really tough for this boy but he knows as long the charcoal factory exists, he would survive.
How about an education? Oh yes, most of them go to school but for how long? It seems that education is just a formality process that the kids all have to go through.
Education does not ensure them a bright future as job opportunity is lacking out there.
The dump site beside which was government owned provides the people job / business opportunities. But ever since a private foreign company took over - a joint venture initiative between the government and private company - the land has been taken away and their lives are now thrown into turmoil.
The company has already taken away a large portion of the dumpsite, and the next wave would come where Ulingan (charcoal factory) would be flattened. This is the worry of the people. Everything is uncertain now. How long can they work there? Nobody knows.
You may ask how about re-education and retraining to create job opportunity in mass recycling? It is a good idea of course. But how many would be employed as machines would do most of the job. This is a teething issue.
It is bad for the people, especially children to work in this hazardous environment but at least they could feed themselves with 2 meals per day. They still have their makeshift houses where they could take shelter under the zinc roofs. But all these may be gone soon.
We are now working in helping the people further by bringing in resources for the transformation of Tondo, smoky mountain and Ulingan. In God time, we hope to galvanize more resources and foreign aid to help these residents.
So far US$10,000 has been raised in January this year for the children feeding programme and another $US5000 for the construction of an educational/church/community hall beside Ulingan. Thank to the leadership of Pastors Nixon and Cora.
More funds will be needed for the educational and feeding programmes. And we hope to raise that in the second half of the year.
I will present a series of pictures illustrating the condition of the children in Ulingan.