Zamboanga the Movie

Visit to Lumbangan community and dumpsite. Discussion with barangay officials and parents. Top concerns voiced were lack of regular employment (no one is employed by companies, everyone has to find daily labor, and if someone is employed, it only lasts for six months, then they are laid off so the company does not owe benefits; education for their children; better access to books other than those being used in the regular public school (usually there’s only one copy of the book per classroom); and the obstacle of high transportation costs for their children to get to the high school. Daily wages working in the dumpsite are 90 pesos (about $2); a round trip to the high school costs 40 pesos (about $1). Also, there are periodic fees for school projects; this can be 20, 40 or as high as 200 pesos. 

They also describe the difficulty of getting a job once a student graduates. They said that you have to know someone, or pay something under the table to get a job. Parents are frustrated that if they invest their scarce resources in a child’s education, they have no guarantee that the child will be able to find a job. Sponsorship can relieve quite a bit of this pressure from the family budget. 

We are talking within the project of expanding the Saturday outreach program to include a learning/resource center that would be open to all ages and open several days a week.  The learning center could house a small library, adult literacy training and livelihood training. We are also brainstorming about how to give the community access to affordable transportation.