Recently I was in Laguna, Philippines visiting families that were part of Goducate’s Veg@table project – that aims to help poor families growvegetables in their yards for their own consumption.
I visited a row of resettlement houses that had been helped by Goducate’s Veg@table team and saw the little yards filled withvegetable (tomatoes, string beans, eggplants) and the proud “farmers” showing off their produce.
These poor people had been resettled by the government because their homes in Manila had been destroyed by a terrible typhoon a few years ago. Their new homes were simple one-room cement houses with electricity that could withstand the next typhoon. However, they wereover 2 hours away from Manila where their jobs were (if they had jobs then).
In their new settlement there were absolutely no jobs and many of them survive through the help of friends and relatives.
As I walked around the settlement, I was introduced to a man whose wife had just left him and their 5 children. The man had been injuredin a recent motor accident and was unable to work. When I visited them, there was exactly one plate of plain rice for the 5 children.One of the kids was deaf and he was eating out of the plate. The other four had nothing. I looked around the one-room house and there wasabsolutely no food in it – just an empty pot on a portable stove.
With my medical training, I could see signs of malnutrition from their size, bellies and hair color.
The father asked for 20 pesos (50 cents) to buy some rice. We did more than that, we had already helped him to plant vegetables in his yard. Hopefully, one day soon those little kids will get to eat not only rice but also some freshly grown vegetable from their own yard!
Goducate has much work to do to help these poor people help themselves.