Posts Tagged ‘Asia’
Posted on October 9, 2010
As we prepare to take a short break to give thanks for all our bounty, we have some very encouraging news for the victims of the flooding in Pakistan.
Development and Peace’s national collection, recieved through public donations and in our churches, thanks to the support of the CCCB, has allowed us to raise over $ 2.5 million for the Pakistan emergency. Amazing! Of this total, nearly $ 500,000 came from the Toronto diocese, via ShareLife.
Very soon, our Program Officer for Emergency Relief, Barbara Trachsel, is leaving for Asia and will be in Pakistan to assess the situation and to coordinate the next steps in our emergency relief program. She will be keeping us posted, giving us news of our partners and their work, which we will be sure to share with you.
We want to take this opportunity to thank all our members and donors for their incredible support. This situation was receiving very little media coverage and not enough public sympathy. As usual, the collaboration and generosity we have witnessed has impressed us and humbled us.
In great thanks and wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving!
What’s our emergency relief program in Pakistan?
Here’s one example…
Development and Peace is supporting the distribution of aid in all four of the country’s provinces.
It is helping Caritas Pakistan provide food, shelter, non-food items and health care to 12,490 families (see map).
Learn more about our emergency relief programs and updated news from Pakistan here.
Posted on October 1, 2010
“What is Happening to our Beautiful Land?” – Irresponsible mining practices are a global issue
“…Our country is in peril. All the living systems on land and in the seas around us are being ruthlessly exploited. The damage to date is extensive and, sad to say, is often irreversible…
We ask the government not to pursue short-term economic gains at the expensive of long-term ecological damage.
We suggest that the Government… promote an awareness of the fragility and limited carrying capacity of our islands’ eco- systems and advocate measures designed to support ecologically sustainable development.”
An extract from the 1988 Filipino Bishops’ Pastoral letter entitled: What is happening to our beautiful land?
Much like this summer’s Youth Solidarity Trip to the Philippines, in 2007 Development and Peace members and staff were forcibly reminded that irresponsible mining practices are not exclusively the domain of some Canadian companies when they visited the area around the Rapu Rapu mine, operated by the Australian mining company Lafayette Mining Ltd, on this island in the Albay Gulf, in Luzon province, the Philippines.
To help us understand the situation of the Rapu-Rapu communities I want to share with you a letter, written by Bishop Arturo Bastes of Sorsogon Diocese, Philippines, imploring the Filipino government to suspend operations at this Australian owned and operated open pit gold, silver and copper mining operation on the island of Rapu Rapu.
… The Lafayette mine is more than a financial mess. It is an environmental and social failure. How many of us forewarned the Administration and the DENR that the project is not socially, technically, environmentally and financially feasible but, still, they allowed it to proceed.
Should they not be held accountable along with Lafayette to rehabilitate the island and compensate the local residents for the damages done by the mine? They also must ensure that enough rehabilitation funds are available for the affected people in the Island….
Genevieve Gallant
Posted on September 23, 2010
REFLECTIONS…
Throughout our Solidarity Trip I was often asked “Who was your favourite partner we visited with?”
I always had a difficult time answering this question because I could not choose, and did not want to. Our partners share a common thread in that they are involved in creating change and developing a better Philippines. They each approach this through different means (which you have become familiar with throughout our blog), and in doing so, address different struggles that Filipinos are faced with.
From seeing how our partners have been active in the Philippines, I feel proud that I am a part of an organization that supports home-based organizations. Development and Peace has done an excellent job in creating solidarity with partners who can stand on their own, and are building the movement of Asian development so that Filipinos themselves, can stand on their own. That, would be my answer to the question.
I was asked about how my understanding of SOLIDARITY has grown…
This opportunity to “be in solidarity” is allowing me to bridge the gap between Canadians and Filipinos. The kind of knowledge I have gained is intended to be shared, and because it came from people who will continue to act for change after we have returned to Canada, the sharing of it must continue.
That is what we, as Canadians, can do for those we share this world with.
I have enough moments from this solidarity experience to fill two notebooks, but this is one that had a very deep effect on me:
The Hardest Moment…
The first two months of this summer I was taking sociology courses for my program at the University of Victoria. In June we discussed “global stratification” and how social inequality exists in the world – poverty and low income were themes. The opening photo of our chapter was of a boy who lived and worked in one of Manila’s garbage dumps, Smokey Mountain. Even then I struggled with the realization that the kind of society and family you are born into determines much about the life you may end up leading.
If my parents had not immigrated to the Canada and I had been born in the Philippines, how would I be living right now? How do some of my family members in the Phiilippines live in relation to this boy? Does this child know that his image is being studied by Canadian university students?
At the time, I did not know that two months later I would be standing in his home, in his place of work. And when I was, the reality of how different our lives are was so heavy. It was as thick as the Manila air (filled with the humidity and the coal fumes) that I was breathing.
An elderly man was singing “We are the world, we are the children” before we boarded the jeepney to depart. It was a very audible contrast to what I was seeing visually, but it reminded me that: yes, although my world may be very different, this is theirs. And after our time at Smokey Mountain with our partner, Urban Poor Associates, I know that the residents have been able to build a community with whatever they have.
Katrina Laquian
Posted on September 20, 2010
As of September 20, Development and Peace has recieved over 1 million dollars for the victims of flooding in Pakistan.
Through Caritas Philippines a 3 month project has started, bringing aid to 250,000 people in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Punjab.
Click here for up to date info on Caritas Pakistan, and here for info on the emergency relief projects.
Beginning in late July, heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan have causing the worst flooding the country has ever experienced. The floods have displaced thousands of people, destroyed houses, hospitals and schools, and have washed out roads and bridges.
According to the Government of Pakistan, 13.8 million people have been affected in all five provinces of the country and 1,600 have died.
Flood-ravaged communities are faced with food shortages, undrinkable water, destroyed crops, and lack of shelter. Many people have also suffered injuries or have become ill due to the unsanitary conditions.
Several communities have been cut-off by high waters and collapsed infrastructure, which is hampering the emergency response. Communications are also very difficult as telephone and electrical poles have come down.
“There are so many people who are in grave difficulty. It’s such a traumatic situation for those who have lost everything and who have to rely on others even for a drink of water,” says Anila Gill, national executive secretary of Caritas Pakistan.
As the monsoon season has progressed, the situation has become increasingly critical and could still worsen as rains continue. The full extent of the damage is still unknown, however, the United Nations estimates that billions of dollars will be needed in order to restore livelihoods and rebuild infrastructure in the country.
Click here to donate!
Follow this link to get more information about the situation in Pakistan and how D&P is responding to this emergency.
Posted on September 15, 2010
Much of Filipino history has been dominated by spurts of colonial rule that has had lasting effects on many elements of current Filipino society. Our partners in the Philippines were able to shed light on many of the ways that years of Spanish and American rule continue to impact the country. One of the persisting effects of colonial rule is in land ownership.
On August 18th, we had the opportunity to observe a demonstration in Legazpi City pertaining to the Hacienda Luisita struggle. Close to 6,500 hectares in size, this sprawling piece of land has been used as a tool for oppression since the 1800s under Spanish rule. After being handed over to the Americans for a brief period, when it became a sugar plantation, it was finally purchased in 1957 by Don Pepe Cojuangco. Cojuangco was father-in-law to then rising politician Ninoy Aquino, who later became the opposition leader to the Marcos dictatorship. Current president Benino Aquino and his family remain part owners of the Hacienda.
One of the stipulations upon purchase was that in 10 years time, the Hacienda Luisita land would have to be redistributed to its tenants – the peasants that lived on and worked the land – at terms and costs that were reasonable. But 10 years came and went, and the Cojuangco-Aquino ownership refused to hold up their end of the bargain.
The result has been a decades-long, ongoing struggle to have proprietors redistribute the land to which the tenants are legally entitled. In 2004, during a blockade by plantation workers and union leaders, soldiers and police dispatched by then president Gloria Arroyo fired at least 1000 rounds of ammunition at the blockade, killing 12 and injuring hundreds. The event is known as the Hacienda Luisita Massacre. To date, no one has been charged for this heinous crime. Other attempts to pacify the farmers – rightful owners of the land – have included offering short-term monetary compensation and stock-options, rather than the land itself.
August18th was a National Day of Outrage call-out to stand in solidarity with the farmers against the compromise deal being offered by the current hacienda owners. The Supreme Court was scheduled to hold an oral hearing on the Stock Option Deal. Farmers and allies from all over the country organized different actions in their respective cities to ensure their voices were heard in the court dispute. It was in this action that our group was participating.
The Centre for Environmental Concern, one of Development and Peace’s partners that hosted us during the trip, is part of a multi-sectoral alliance that organized the action. The demo we attended was held outside the Department for Agrarian Reform regional office in Legazpi City. While the issue was new to all of us, it was important for us to get a small taste of the activism and mobilization that is happening around agrarian reform in the Philippines.
To date, there has still been little action on revoking the stock option deal and ensuring that the farmers get the land that they are entitled to and have been struggling to attain for decades. As human rights advocates and as supporters of a just and sustainable world, we all must stand in solidarity with the farmers of the Hacienda Luisita and our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world fighting for their rights.
Kaitlyn Duthie-Kannikkatt
Posted on September 15, 2010
Educating Through Theater – PETA
Our final two days in the Philippines were spent with PETA (you can check them out at www.petatheater.com). PETA is acronym for the Philippine Educational Theatre Association. The organization began in 1967 and is in it’s 43rd theatre season. Their purpose is to “perform and educate.” They have a vision of “theatre in service of common good.”
Artist-teacher-cultural members of PETA educate Filipinos on social change and development through theatre. They do this through facilitating workshops (both nationally and internationally) and running projects and programs that teach Filipinos technical theatre skills alongside education on issues of the Republic. For example, their Children’s Theater Program trains young Filipinos and their educations to be successful in performance, while also focusing on child’s rights and youth participation.
PETA also networks with other theatre organizations in the Philippines and internationally. They make theatre available to schools and the greater community (including other provinces in the Philippines) through their mobile shows, and make their shows available to those who cannot afford them so that their form of education can be accessible to all Filipinos.
PETA has written, directed, and performed about 300 plays, the way true Filipino theatre should be, and strongly believes in producing productions that are “quality theatre”. We were invited to attend their adaptation of Asian poet and playwright Rabindranath Tagore’s “Post Office.” The story is of a young boy, Abel, who is nearing death but is determined to live fully in spite if never being able to leave his windowsill. He does this dreaming of the arrival of his letter from the King and sharing his visions with those who cross the path in front of his home.
The play centers on themes of children and death. For children of the Philippines, it expresses the capacity of the human spirit to dream of a life of happiness and to be alive in what they do despite the realities of poverty and disaster that make death a close neighbour.
The play was in Tagalog, and although I was able to understand most of it, there were moments where I was lost in translation. Yet in those moments where spoken language was a barrier to me, the layout of the performance, the body language of the actors, and their facial expressions were still more than enough to carry Abel’s story. As French and English speaking D&P participants, this expression beyond words was important for us and a testament to the exceptional quality of PETA’s productions.
We had been visiting PETA at the PETA Theatre Centre, what has been called a “landmark theatre in Art and Culture” in the Philippines. D&P was one of the patrons who supported the creation of theatre and PETA’s move to the heart of Quezon City in 2005. Our farewell program with all the host partners we had been in solidarity with over our two weeks was at this theatre, hosted by artist-teachers of PETA. It was a time for everyone to share in what they learned from one another over our visit and to look to the future and building the movement of development in Asia.
I am blessed to be a part of this movement for social change and development. I have seen what Filipinos are doing for other Filipinos to create a better Philippines. And I have been educated by PETA that we should cultivate our talents to serve the better good. Their achievements as a catalyst for social change provide an example of this for other educational theatres across the world.
Katrina Laquian
Posted on September 9, 2010
August 13th 2010 – Baseco Barangay, Manila
For the past 24 hours we have been with the community of Baseco, hosted by the Kabilikat community group, who are allied with our partners – the Urban Poor Associates in Manila.
After spending the night and having breakfast with our host families in Baseco the group reconnected in the morning at the Kabilikat offices.
Time to take our fourth mode of transportation – ’ tricycles’ (motorbikes with side cars)! Squeezing fourteen people on to 4 trikes was a challenge but not a problem.
We appreciated the trickiness of local travel considering what we have learned about transportation costs here and how it relates to the tribulations of the job-seekers of the urban poor in Manila.
We visited 3 urban poor communities and learned about their different struggles – the threat of eviction, the unsafe conditions (like living on the side of a large speedway), floods and fires, lack of services (like clean water, or sewage systems) and the constant struggle to find work. Under all these threats, the people have come together to organize themselves, to advocate for their needs and to request their municipal leaders to provide services to the urban poor communities. This kind of organizing happens all over the world – it’s each of our jobs to remind our elected officials of their responsabilities to the people.
After the noisiest meeting in front of one of the houses on the side of the busy highway, we left by jeepney for the next community we were visiting. I heard Marlon, a Community Organizer from UPA, say that the next place was the worst place to live in Manila. I wasn’t sure what to expect.
The South Port is the garbage dump of Manila, where all of the garbage from the city arrives. From the port nearbly, the garbage is loaded onto boats and taken somewhere else. No one could tell me where the garbage goes. Walking into the site was intimidating, where we were about to see some of the most shocking poverty. How do you prepare yourself for that? I started by putting on my rubber boots.
From the moment we arrived we were walking on garbage and when we weren’t, we were walking through mud. We were one of the few people in the community with shoes on. Marlon tried to have us walk through the actual dumpsite but the leader of the families did not think it was safe. The garbage acts as fill, so that the people can build housing on land that is regularly swamped by water.
The people build their houses out of the discarded materials and make a livelihood out of converting wood into charcoal and by recycling plastic water bottles, a kilo at a time. Collecting a kilo of plastic water bottles brings about $0.50 Canadian. That’s a lot of plastic bottles.
The conditions in which these 1,000 families live would not be passable in North America. The smoke from the charcoal production hung above the site, and after walking for an hour I tried to re-apply my sunscreen but I was so covered in dirt that I ended up just rubbing dirt around on my arms and legs. In that moment I hated the part of me that wanted to go back to our hotel, shower and nap in the air-conditioned and clean room.
The big difference between the urban poor communities we met in Baseco and South Port - the people of Baseco have basic housing but no income to meet their needs, there are not enough jobs, even garbage collecting. The people of South Port have a steady source of income but terrible housing conditions. I can’t imagine how the people coming to Manila from the different regions choose -dangerous work or dangerous housing? You leave your home for the dream that there might be work in Manila.
On this trip we are learning that there is no single cause of poverty. You can’t say the urban centres are rich and the rural people are poor, or vice-versa. It’s complicated. We are also seeing the amazing work of our guides – the Community Organizers, like Marlon, and how crucial it is to support the efforts of the urban poor communities.
Gillian Murphy
Posted on September 9, 2010
Building Family in the Philippines – Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs)
Our days with NASSA (Caritas Philippines) took us from north of Manila (where we visited the demonstration farm at Nueva Ecija and Misereor Village) to southeast of Manila, to all over the Bicol Region.
When I look back at our first full day in the Bicol region (August 16th), I am still overwhelmed by how much we participated in that day. By the end of that day we had visited four communities, traveled by jeepney (colourful, community bus) and railroad trolley, and connected with several leaders and community members we now call friends.
Our second community visit that day was to Camagong Cabusao in Camarines Sur. Here we were welcomed as the “Canadian Team” to a Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC). The BEC is one of NASSA’s programs that organizes parishes into smaller groups, with the purpose of giving the community a sense of family. Each BEC has programs for health, farming, faith, and more. The BEC of Camagong has 15-20 smaller groups/families that they call “clusters”. Each cluster has a “cluster leader” with many helpers.
When we arrived at this “barangay” (community) everyone was at the entrance shaking our hands as we entered their main building. One cluster leader expressed that they were happy to be chosen to have us visit: “We open our hearts and arms to you.”
A different cluster leader educated us on what kind of programs the BEC has established:
- a communal garden that allows members to practice the Filipino “bayanihan” (everyone working together).
- monthly faith activities: for example - in April, they have the procession of a patron saint that is brought to each house for prayer and adoration. In keeping with building a sense of family in the community, they ensure that the saints are always brought to the house AND fields of the farmers, as they are always busy with their work.
- “self-help groups” that include a livestock project.
We were invited to walk around the barangay and “enjoy strolling with them under the heat of the sun.” I had not taken this literally and have never felt so welcomed by a group of people. Everyone walked with us along the road to where we would plant rice. We were no longer their visitors – this was what being a part of their “family” was about.
Under the shade of her umbrella, one cluster leader said to me as I looked around: “This is how abundant we are at this barangay. Anyone who needs something…all they have to do is knock on someone’s door.” She asked me why we were there, and I explained the work of Development and Peace and our roles as participants on the solidarity experience. From my reply, she said: “You’ve met the cluster leaders here and now you will be the cluster leaders when you are home. Share our story.”
At the BEC, not only did I learn about how NASSA helps parishes apply activities that foster total human development, I also learned about how families can be. The sense of family that BECs have achieved seems to have connections that run deeper than blood relations. I am more grateful now that I have been able to experience a form of this with the Filipino community I grew up in in Ontario.
The community sang “for he’s a jolly good fellow” to us before our departure and ended it with Connie Francis:
“Good luck, good health, God bless you, and guide you on their way…” I wish the same for our friends and mentors at Camagong.
Katrina Laquian
Posted on July 13, 2010
You can participate in their journey by following/reading their blog. You can find their blog site here. This blog is their way to share the stories of their journey while in Cambodia visiting D&P partner organizations (June 29 – July 17, 2010).
