Thursday, August 25, 2005
From grass roots to motorbikes
Hi,
As you can see haven't had a whole lot of time to post. And this will also be short. Since writing last we have been kept busy every day. We visited the Akap Bata project in Tondo, which is a grass roots school which is run by volunteer teachers from the local area. Some of the conditions within the areas and the "schools" have to be seen to be believed but the intentions and determination behind the project is impressive.
We also got to visit government run institutions - Elsie Gatches which is a huge plot of land which was donated to the government for the sole purpose of looking after people with long term physical and mental disabilities. A good setup but also some questionable practices of having kids tied to fences so that they won't fall and hurt themselves?!
On the other extreme we visited Reception Action Centre Manila which is a government run street kids project but the objective of this is more to clean up the streets and get the view of street kids out of the way of tourists, because the centre is hugely overpopulated with people living on top of each other, from young to old, in er poor conditions, and when we were there the medical centre was being staffed on a volunteer basis by short term French volunteers, and the woman working as the main nurse, was a qualified nutritionist, and she was working on cleaning woounds and skin diseases. A crazy setup, with huge framed photos of Manila's great mayor everywhere you look!
We also met the REAP scholars (Redemptorist Educational Assistance programme). The Redemptorist setup, more specifically the lay missionaries set up here, is hugely impressive. They really have it working well here.
So now all of the group are back in Manila and we are off on an exposure today to Payatas and then on Friday we leave for Singapore and back to ireland by Monday. So this will proably be the last post til then.
Time has flown but it has been great.
Will fill in more details when I get home.
Till then!
Slan!
Dave
As you can see haven't had a whole lot of time to post. And this will also be short. Since writing last we have been kept busy every day. We visited the Akap Bata project in Tondo, which is a grass roots school which is run by volunteer teachers from the local area. Some of the conditions within the areas and the "schools" have to be seen to be believed but the intentions and determination behind the project is impressive.
We also got to visit government run institutions - Elsie Gatches which is a huge plot of land which was donated to the government for the sole purpose of looking after people with long term physical and mental disabilities. A good setup but also some questionable practices of having kids tied to fences so that they won't fall and hurt themselves?!
On the other extreme we visited Reception Action Centre Manila which is a government run street kids project but the objective of this is more to clean up the streets and get the view of street kids out of the way of tourists, because the centre is hugely overpopulated with people living on top of each other, from young to old, in er poor conditions, and when we were there the medical centre was being staffed on a volunteer basis by short term French volunteers, and the woman working as the main nurse, was a qualified nutritionist, and she was working on cleaning woounds and skin diseases. A crazy setup, with huge framed photos of Manila's great mayor everywhere you look!
We also met the REAP scholars (Redemptorist Educational Assistance programme). The Redemptorist setup, more specifically the lay missionaries set up here, is hugely impressive. They really have it working well here.
So now all of the group are back in Manila and we are off on an exposure today to Payatas and then on Friday we leave for Singapore and back to ireland by Monday. So this will proably be the last post til then.
Time has flown but it has been great.
Will fill in more details when I get home.
Till then!
Slan!
Dave
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