Humanitarian Mission to the Poorest of the Poor

An all-day humanitarian mission was conducted by four RIMM Rotarians with a van overloaded with rice (250kg rice in 5kg bags), baked goods, bought school supplies, misc. school supplies and clothing donated by Japanese Club Rotarians and over P10,000 in P20 currencies for distribution to the children.

Tondo (formerly known for Smokey Mountain) Dump Site, Metro Manila

This site is huge, old garbage mountain where the poorest of the poor are struggling to survive by going through garbage, looking for recyclable items which can be cashed in at junk shops. A nearby active garbage dump site provides further opportunities for recycling and survival with garbage delivered to the street recyclers by middlemen.

Our club members were shocked to see hundreds of children emerged to grab P20 bills (watch video). In poverty there is no proper education thus family planning is neglected. What kind of future can these children expect? After this visit, our club decided to provide financial or food assistance only to whom undergo contraceptive measures such as BTL (Bilateral Tubal Ligation), subcutaneous implant, etc.

Pasay Cemetary

People live in and around the cemetery with no source of income except for garbage recycling and begging.

RIMM members visited these two sites and  provided sacks of rice, quality used clothes from Japan, firewoods for cooking their balut (fertilized duck egg with developed embryo), coconuts, P100 for each family, etc. Selling of balut is their livelihood and requires a ready supply of firewood which they have to buy if not available.

New club member Betty handed out 20 peso bills to the children and the elderly. Christmas cheer was celebrated with singing songs of the season. Betty also invited all indigents to a Christmas Day Party (Dec. 25th) at her home where she and her husband provided a hearty meal to over 100 indigents as well as gifts for the children.

RIMM donated initial construction materials to assist in rebuilding the shanties of the informal settlers at Usting, Luksuhin Ibaba who were evicted from barangay Mangas II in Alfonso, Cavite, Philippines.

Barangay Luksuhin Ibaba lady Captain Cynthia was on site with us to witness the donation of the materials and rebuilding of the shanties.

Richard, the leader of the informal settlers, worked with all the male settlers on building four houses (one of which where Henry’s family resides) that needed assistances the most. They were very grateful of RIMM’s donation of the housing materials.

An additional funding is allocated to continue their house reconstruction this month.

RIMM is buying housing materials at a local hardware store for the informal settlers.

RIMM gave the check donation of P10,000 through Ms. Madz (in orange T-shirt) to aid post-surgery medication cost of FriendlyCare. She issued an Official Receipt of the said donation.

Ms. Madz said FriendlyCare aims to provide its ligation services in the entire Province of Cavite. Ms. Madz told us that FriendlyCare gives financial incentives to the Barangay health worker for every successful ligation referred.

Dr. Liza Capupus (in blue-white blouse) who is a City Health Officer of Tagaytay, strongly supports Family Planning.

Dr. Capupus mentioned the following reasons why the uneducated sector in the Philippines remain in utter poverty and continuing to rise in alarming rate:

• they do not believe or refuse in the usage of any method of contraception
• they believe having more children will help in earning money to put food
  on the table each day; they are lucky if they can have one meal in a day.
• strong influence of the Catholic Church

She said USAID has observed that usage of pills & condoms being provided for free in health centers were mainly used by middle income sector and not by the poorest sector who needs it most which was USAID’s main target. That is part of the reason why USAID has diminished its assistance to the Department of Health. There are now lesser supplies of contraception available for free at health centers.

She also said the Department of Health has trained selected professional health workers to be resource speakers on a subject called “Adolescent Health” wherein teenage pregnancy is discussed in the said subject. There are modules in the program that the trained resource speakers follow as guidelines during the seminar. She assigns her resource speakers on voluntary basis to conduct it at local high schools in Tagaytay. The City Health Head Nurse of Tagaytay will conduct the Adolescent Health seminar at Tagaytay National High School.

She suggested that we approach Dr. Manzo to invite a trained resource speaker on Adolescent Health from her department to participate in our Teenage Pregnancy Forum at Taywanak National High School in Alfonso on Sept, 18.

Updates of Henry (who were almost dying in the beginning of the year): He shaved his hair and looked all right.
Updates of the baby girl with a lump on her arm: The little space with some tarpaulin sheet wrapped as wall is where the mother and the baby girl sleep. They are just “borrowing” the space to sleep. The skin surface of the hemangioma has scabs.
The recently delivered baby who had a little jaundice before seem to be all right now. She just has some mosquito bites.