A little reprieve

In an unexpected nook, tucked in Mandaue City, is the Green Learning Center, managed by the General Services Department of the local government. It’s head, Engr. Marivic Cabigas, has made it her commitment to green the area before she retires.

Her aim is laudable. And if you can picture how a dumpsite looks like with all the squalor and stench, you will be amazed at the little reprieve you will find in this small nook found in Barangay Omapad, Mandaue City.

What used to be a clutter of a whole cocktail of garbage is now widespace where one could fly his kite and enjoy the breeze from the Mactan Channel.

It took several years to transform the landfill of Mandaue City into this little haven. And in each development there are a lot of stories to tell.

Going into the center may be a little challenging though with the roads awash with flood waters that do not recede easily. The potholes give you a feel of a trip to the moon and the many waste segregators along the way, do not prepare you for what to expect at the end of the road.

In my first visit to this place, it was towards Christmas. The soil was damp. And with some of my workmates who volunteered to give a Christmas treat to the children of the waste pickers living in thearea, we went into the small daycare center. The one-room children’s learning center was made out of recycled materials. The desks gathered from old materials with chairs made out of planks also retrieved from recyclables. The place was neat in spite of its environs and the children were happy.

But one could not dispel the presence of an errant fly now and then when we began serving the food after a short program. The children were ecstatic and so were their parents. A particularly pretty little girl had tears flowing from her eyes as she ate her food. But she wore a smile on her face. I asked her father why she was crying and he said she was not really crying.  She just had high fever that made her eyes teary. I asked him why she was not resting at home and he said she preferred to go to school as no one could take care of her at home while he worked at the garbage mounds. Her mother he said left them for another man.

Perhaps by now that little girl may be in her teens for that was ten years ago. The trees planted by different groups have already grown into shady groves where people can rest as they seat on benches made out of salvaged materials and cement.

The daycare center teacher used to be from the smattering of shanties in the area and she related how hard it was for them to go to school as they classmates would smirk at them for being from the garbage site. She related how poor her self-esteem was, and how her classmates would chide her as if she were garbage herself. When she learned how to teach, she volunteered to be the daycare center facilitator to enable the children to at least learn how to read and write so that when they pursue their formal education, they can cope with the children in school.

Engr. Marivic Cabigas plowed in more of her initiative to and dedication to the people in the site dreaming with them that some day the locators in the area may also know how to live decently. Their houses may be small, but for them their dwellings are their castles. So it is Engr. Cabigas’ hope to help the  families there better their shanties so that they can have cleaner homes.

Engr. Cabigas also hopes to make reading rooms perhaps out of abandoned buses for the children to open their minds to more learning. 

It is this intention of this column to touch those in business, and in the business of helping to make it their business after business to help the children and families in the area.

A training center for livelihood is a great need. This can be supported by a foundation who can teach simple trade skills like sewing, carpentry and handyman work. This way, we can help them fish on their own so we do not have to keep on bringing them fish.

God bless everyone.