"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
A crash course in changing the world.
Life in Tondo ten years on...
I've just got back from my weekly class in the business department at the International School. The school opens its doors, once a week, to social entrepreneurs like myself. Providing full financial backing to members of the community like me (yes! we are considered as part of the community now.. amazing, no?) My class comprises of women who work with their hands, who have learned and trained in local NGOs and are now in a position to move back to the province to open their own sustainable livelihood projects. Back to the province where... generations ago, our relatives once lived... before they were fooled into fleeing to the cities to find... the streets paved with...not gold... but trash. I can't quite believe how lucky I am. I can't quite believe how much change I have witnessed at the international school over the past ten years, I can't quite believe... my self belief... my hopes for the future... my dreams that are being realized...
I remember...
back in 2009 when I visited the campus for the first time. Although I had been working with Jane at PCF for two years already and I was used to seeing foreigners there, I was so intimidated by the sheer size of the building, the extravagance of the facilities and the wealth that the community exuded. What was I doing there? After the hour long ride from pier 18 dumpsite, leaving my 8 children behind in my half burnt out shanty house... I felt so utterly out of place, it might as well have been Mars that I had landed on, not a school in my own city.
I remember...
a very enthusiastic teacher welcome me with a warm smile. She spoke with a friendly voice, though I didn't understand half of what she was saying, and she guided me to where I could set up our stall. Our first sales held at the International School. The launch of a new relationship with our new partners (PCF were their new solid waste management company). Over the months that ensued, materials were collected and our projects were promoted and we were soon invited in to school to do demonstrations with the children, then faculty and parents. More and more people became interested in our work.
I remember...
it took a couple of years for classroom teachers to see us as a living resource, an invaluable connection to the real world, a learning opportunity to help model connections for the children and community alike. But, with time, we were soon visiting classrooms to speak to children, children were visiting us in our homes and more important than REUSE and RECYCLE initiatives succeeding, the community saw the need to REDUCE their consumption. I could see the shift happen.
I remember...
when our pick up truck only had to visit the school every other day as there simply wasn't the volume of trash there once was. The school canteen has stopped selling bottled water, soft drinks in cans, and most work now is written and submitted digitally.
So, next year I will have completed my third year of this business class and will be ready to move back to Leyte to reconnect with the earth that my forefathers traded for the landfill in Tondo. My children and grandchildren are obviously anxious about my move. They don't want their lola to leave. However, my three daughters were lucky enough to benefit from an education at the PCF school- the first school to be made of recycled shipping containers- and due to this opportunity, they have all managed to get jobs in call centers. The only trash they see every day is their own. They are satisfied in Manila. They have achieved much more, much younger than I did and I am happy for them and their families.
They will be able to afford the ferry ticket once a year, at Christmas, to come and visit me in Leyte. And if they struggle, I will pay the ticket for them.
10 years ago, I never imagined that I would ever be able to pay for anything more than my family's rice at meal times.
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