Day 25: Harsh realities, but... hope!

Today I'm going to let my photos do most of the talking. I'm dedicating day 25 to the people of Manila's Payatas Landfill "Scavenger's Colony" as I call it. It's situated right beside a huge city landfill, basically, a giant mountain of trash. Child labor is rampant here, not to mention the extremely hazardous conditions for the adult laborers as well.  

Many of these children, if intervention is not successful, will end up as prostitutes among the estimated 60,000-100,000 child prostitutes in metro Manila. Hard to believe? Well, Manila has a population of over 20 million, poverty is extreme, and organized crime is pervasive. It's sadly the common recipe for such a tragedy.

Trash is everywhere. It's an ecological disaster. Many of the kids have open sores on their skin from exposure to God knows what kinds of chemicals. It's for scenes like these that I abhor plastic bags and try to avoid adding to the demand of such products myself. 

I have to tell you the bad news before you can understand that the good news is... truly good news. So bear with me, I know these are not easy images to digest. 

The good news is, there's hope. In this very colony, we've begun a new "Children's Hope Center" that is offering real hope to these kids. We're providing nutrition, hygiene support, and education opportunities through the provision of school supplies, computer classes and assistance in enrolling them in local schools. Here are a couple of shots I took at the center earlier this year.

And more good news! Donations poured in yesterday for a total of $200. This leaves us just $5 short of our 16th scholarship for these children. Please follow this link to chip in whatever you can spare! It all adds up and makes a huge difference in the life of a child.

Today was one of the more difficult days of the challenge. Here's what I came up with, using just $1 worth of food...

Breakfast. Another morning on the run, so all I had time for was oatmeal with raisins and 3 slices of banana from my weekly banana. ▼

Lunch. My first real meal failure on this challenge. Egg fried rice, but I wanted to try something to mix it up. Roasted potatoes and carrots was not the way to go. I overcooked them and the burned mushy taste was awful. Also had to throw away half of my cabbage leaf ration because it was rotten. I was reminded that there's no refrigeration in the slums and how this must be a common problem, cooking with less than fresh food but having to eat it for survival. ▼

Dinner. Potato soup, chili style. Added a tablespoon of corn meal from my seasonings allowance to add texture and it worked nicely. Chopped corn tortillas and carrots also helped. Soup, with the right seasonings, is never a bad idea when you're hungry and have little to work with. ▼

Take Action!

1) Please consider giving toward scholarships for children of the slums. Our goal is to cover a scholarship for 20 kids to get an education this next year. Every little bit helps!

2) Please visit my unofficial sponsor, Amazon.com through this link. 7% of your purchases made through the link are given to Peace Gospel. If you're in the UK, use this link.

3) If you're compelled by my effort here, please share it with friends. One of the main goals is awareness. So if you can help with that, huge.

4) Leave me feedback. Please comment on this post, especially if you have any ideas about what I should try to cook with these ingredients I have available. I love hearing from you! It really helps!

Day 17: A difficult day

This was an extremely difficult day. The hunger and monotony of ingredients is starting to wear on me. I'm honestly not sure if I'm going to make it. Aside from this, traffic is down on the blog and I'm starting to wonder if people are becoming disinterested. I can completely understand. I mean, this is the 3rd time I've blogged on this topic and all my friends, my usual support base of awareness-raisers, are probably on burn-out. It gets a little redundant. I'm going to rethink how I'm doing this in terms of raising awareness. But I'm not giving up just yet.

I'm not giving up, because there are still kids out there like him, a boy I met in the Payatas Landfill scavengers colony of Manila. He's 14 and has been working at this trash sorting facility since he was 8, he told me through an interpreter. He wears only flip-flops and had open sores on his legs. This is the reality of child labor which is rampant in the developing world.

And I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but here's the point: there is hope, if we come together to do something, to be a part of the solution instead of contributing to the problem. "Wait," you say, "I'm not contributing to the problem!" Well, I have to agree with Elie on this one:

“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” ― Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz Survivor, Nobel Peace Prize Winner

"So, what can I do, then?" You ask. You can volunteer, advocate for, and give to programs making a real impact. You can do your research to make sure you're not supporting companies who have lax child labor policies with their overseas manufacturers. Awareness is half the battle. Be a spokesperson among your circle of friends, using social media and whatever platforms you have. We all have some kind of platform, even if your audience is tiny, it's doing something. I cannot stress this enough, this is my main point. Please. do. something. 

Here's a result of one such effort to do something. These are girls at our program we call "The Children's Hope Center" just a short walk from the scene above in the Payatas Landfill colony of Manila, Philippines. They're getting access to better nutrition, computer classes, and school supplies to help them enroll in school. Their parents could not otherwise afford such an opportunity for them.

This greatly decreases their risk of being trafficked into the unthinkable child prostitution rings that plague metro Manila—there are an estimated 60,000-100,000 children trapped in prostitution in the city. (You may not have realized Manila, Philippines is among the top 5 most populated cities on the earth, at over 20 million residents—I sure didn't when I first visited). It must stop, and we must do something about it.

Today we received a very generous donation of $30 toward our goal, and this brings us so, so close to funding our 14th scholarship for one of these kids—we're just $55 away! Please chip in whatever you can afford to help us get another child on the right track, away from child labor, away from the risk of trafficking and prostitution. Follow this link to give whatever you can afford today. Thank you!


On to what I was able to prepare using just $1 worth of ingredients today...

Breakfast. 1/3 cup oatmeal with raisins, 3 banana slices. ▼

Lunch. Egg fried rice with ramen noodles, cabbage, carrots. ▼

Dinner. Not the prettiest of my creations, but it did the job. Re-fried beans & brown rice mix with seasonings, to make a vegetarian soft taco trio. ▼

Take Action!

1) Please consider giving toward scholarships for children of the slums. Our goal is to cover a scholarship for 20 kids to get an education this next year. Every little bit helps!

2) Please visit my unofficial sponsor, Amazon.com through this link. 7% of your purchases made through the link are given to Peace Gospel. If you're in the UK, use this link.

3) If you're compelled by my effort here, please share it with friends. One of the main goals is awareness. So if you can help with that, huge.

4) Leave me feedback. Please comment on this post, especially if you have any ideas about what I should try to cook with these ingredients I have available. I love hearing from you! It really helps!

Day 10: Hope for the victims

I'm dedicating day 10 of my challenge to the kids of this slum colony in Manila, Philippines. It's the Payatas Landfill Colony. Most who live here work at the edge of the landfill sifting through the trash seeking redeemable materials. It's not really so much a landfill as it is a huge smoking mountain of trash. The fact that its official name is the "Payatas Sanitary Landfill" is quite ironic. As you can see from the photos below, it's anything but sanitary.

Kids of all ages can be found working here, rummaging through the trash, collecting whatever recyclable or redeemable materials they can find, sorting it into different bags. During my visits here, I've been shocked to see how many of the kids have open sores and skin rashes. The air and water quality conditions are unfathomably deplorable. Here's a shot I took during my visit just 3 months ago.

Here's another shot I captured in the same colony, revealing a common scene of kids playing in an open sewage drain. Already victims of child labor, they're also at extreme risk of human trafficking—an estimated 60k to 100k children in the Philippines (mostly in Manila, population 20 million) are involved in prostitution rings run by organized crime.

These scenes are heartbreaking, but the good news is, there's hope, and you can do something about it. Through the development of a sustainable model that empowers a native-led farmland in the Philippines, funds are being multiplied to help these kids break out of the cycle of extreme poverty. Through education and nutrition, kids are getting out of the trash heap and into school. Here's a scene I shot at our "Children's Hope Center" in the same colony! Here kids are getting access to educational supplies that help them enroll in school, computer classes and nutritious meals.

My goal with this 30 day challenge is not just to bring awareness of extreme poverty and child labor, but to help you see that together, we can do something about it. Thus I'm encouraging everyone visiting this blog to chip in whatever they can afford to help me fund 20 scholarships for children who are living in these conditions—to give them hope, that someone cares, and that they can actually go to school, eat fresh, nutritious meals and make plans for a future outside the colony. Please give whatever you can afford, just visit this page to learn more and donate today!

I'm super happy with our total of $1,605 raised to date! This means 3 children's lives will be forever impacted through the opportunity their scholarships will afford them! Just $395 more until we reach one more scholarship!

Today I'm definitely feeling the hunger and cravings starting to kick in. But overall, I cannot complain, knowing how much less of a challenge I'm facing than they face every day. Here's what I came up with for day 10...

Breakfast. Just a simple breakfast taco on a corn tortilla, with pinto beans, brown rice and I took the time to add boiled potatoes for variety this morning. ▼

Lunch. Another vegetable soup creation, this time with pasta noodles, cabbage, brown rice, pinto beans, seasonings and some extra carrots saved from yesterday's unused ration. ▼

Dinner. Went with the baked goodness of re-fried bean, rice and carrot taquitos again. Topped with pasta sauce and seasonings, this hit the spot, all things considered. ▼

I really appreciate your support! Although no donations came through today, I know it will pick back up! I just appreciate your use of the Amazon link below, and all you're doing to spread the word, not to mention just reading this far! Thank you!

Take Action!

1) Please consider giving toward scholarships for children of the slums. Our goal is to cover a scholarship for 20 kids to get an education this next year. Every little bit helps!

2) Please visit my unofficial sponsor, Amazon.com through this link. 7% of your purchases made through the link are given to Peace Gospel. If you're in the UK, use this link.

3) If you're compelled by my effort here, please share it with friends. One of the main goals is awareness. So if you can help with that, huge.

4) Leave me feedback. Please comment on this post, especially if you have any ideas about what I should try to cook with these ingredients I have available. I love hearing from you! It really helps!>