HELP for Pedring

From Sidney's blog: Last September 27, 2011 a powerful typhoon (Pedring, international name - Nesat) has struck the Philippines. Witnesses said flooding in parts of Manila was the worst in decades. In the shanty village of Ulingan in Tondo (click here) which is facing the sea, most of the homes were destroyed leaving many families homeless. All those families are already living below the poverty line. Project Pearls and Photo Kalye are organizing relief operations. They need your help more than ever.

Own a piece of Manny Pacquiao!

Congratulations Manny Pacquiao!!! You truly are the  best boxer in the whole world! Beating Antonio Margarito in a unanimous decision getting his 8th world title.

Be a champion like Manny Pacquiao! Project PEARLS is doing an Auction for a Cause. We are auctioning Pacquiao's autographed training boxing gloves benefiting the Ulingan Kids' Outreach Project. Bid now and be a champion of the children at Ulingan. Bid at www.ebay.com - Item # 130454794993!

Andrew wrote: My armoire smells like the Pambansang Kamao—the Philippine "National Fist"—and I wants to know how much that's worth. Seriously. I have a pair of Manny Pacquiao's boxing gloves, both of which he signed after training in them—*vigorously*. They emanate without end, these gloves; my underwear, socks, T-shirts and jeans all carry the Champ's glorious musk. Manny gave these gloves to the photographer, Mark Seliger, who shot the portrait that ran with my GQ story earlier this year. Seliger, who brooks no musk, champion or non-, turned them over to the mag, which sent them along to me (as if my underwear didn't already carry a Champion's Eau). I can't do anything with these gloves, ethically or athletically so, as with all my shoes and all my glasses, I just...have them. But now I'm giving them to a charity that helps impoverished children in the Philippines; they'll auction them off.

Andrew Corsello wrote a very beautiful story about Manny Pacquiao for GQ magazine, dubbing the "pambansang kamao" "The Biggest Little Man in the World"

help the children of ulingan

A few months ago, together with some fellow bloggers, we visited "happy land" and my heart was broken seeing the plight of those unfortunate kids who had to make a living scavenging from garbage and exposed to the deadly fumes of ulingan.

Sitio Ulingan is a temporary resettlement area of the people from Smokey Mountain (Manila's old dumpsite), which is now home to a small community. The "ulingan people" are making a living making charcoals aside from scavenging garbage from nearby dump sites to make ends meet. 

"Sitio Ulingan defines poverty in a novel way. No one can ever know what real poverty is until one takes a glimpse into the everyday life of the Ulingan people." - Dennis Villegas

It is really heartbreaking to see the kids working at the charcoal pit instead of playing.  Thankfully, there is someone like Melissa Villa-Wilcox who co-founded Project PEARLS with her daughter to help alleviate the lives of underprivileged children in the Philippines.

Project PEARLS is a registered non-profit organization in the State of California. Its mission is to help underprivileged children in the Philippines to have a better life by giving them PEARLS: PEACE. EDUCATION. ASPIRATION. RESPECT. LOVE. SMILE.

And they have been doing a great job helping the kids at Ulingan.About 2 months ago they had their first Ulingan outreach program with Photo Kalye and distributed goods to the kids.  To show how amazing this group, they had another outreach program 2 weeks after that and gave boots to the kids. And just recently Project PEARLS had another outreach program at Ulingan and i believe that Ms. Melissa is planning to build a better daycare center for the kids of Ulingan!!! woot! woot!

"She has big dreams for the children of Ulingan. But this special lady knows how to make her dreams reality.
Congrats Melissa for the wonderful job you do together with your volunteers and PhotoKalye." - Sidney Snoeck

You can help too and make this dream a reality.  Please support or give donation to Project PEARLS. You can join their page on facebook here. or give your donations here.

happy land

Happiness is a state of mind.

Waking up everyday to the stench and depressing situation and still able to smile at the world means something... makes you realize how lucky you are indeed... and the next time you feel like the world is unfair... think of these children and the lives they live everyday...

Had a chance to visit Payatas and Smokey Mountain with some bloggers that i really admire (Sidney, Dennis, Dodong, and Liza) and it's so sad to see how some of our fellow countrymen live...

Payatas is called the "Lupang Pangako" or the Promised Land but it is manila's dumpsite and is one of the cheap source of livelihood for one of the largest and poorest informal settlers in this jungle city

Smokey mountain is a large landfill in manila with over 2 million tons of waste, where people still live and earn their keep by picking garbage.. adults and children alike...

the way they live and the state they live in will make you cringe and cry not because of the stench and dirt but because of sadness... no one should live like this

 

I never intended to post street children and the depressing lives that some of our people live, but I also have to show you the other side of Manila, the site where others would prefer to look the other way...

But such is life... and i can only hope that posting these pictures here can help them... to let the people know how miserable and sad their life is...

And with hope that people not only see depression but hope especially with the coming elections... and i am begging my countrymen to please vote wisely...

it was journey that is sad and depressing...

they say that once in your life you'll encounter a place or people that will make an impact in your mind and can alter the way you see life...