Carlo's family runs a small store on the main road of their village. Cora, Carlo's mom, manages the business. Rolando, Carlo's dad, runs a habal habal - a light-weight motorcycle that operates as a taxi service. He charges a few pesos a for a ride up or down the big hill where their village is perched. Roland, Carlo's little brother, is seven, and losing lots of teeth the way seven-year-olds do. The family lives in a two-room house with an outdoor kitchen where four very vocal roosters are kept.
Carlo's family is getting by well enough since moving into the Saint Arnold Janssen rehousing project. But this wasn't always the way they lived. Before Carlo was born, Rolando and Cora lived in a fishing slum at the bottom of the hill. While families who live in this slum can rely on fishing for income, conditions there are horrendous. The village is built so close to the water that many of the houses sit on stilts, and every day a huge portion of the slum floods with the incoming tide. People have to wait for the knee-deep, polluted water to recede before getting on with their day.
JPIC-IDC is a local, Cebu-based NGO that's been working with this fishing village for more than 20 years. When they were finally able to get funding to build a new housing project on top of a nearby mountain, away from flooding tides, Cora and Rolando were one of the first families to sign up. Giving up the only way they knew how to make a living wasn't easy, but Rolando and Cora have had tremendous success in rebuilding their family's life. Neither of them went to high school, but it's their dream that their children might have the opportunity to go to college.
One year ago, I met Carlo's family. As part of the fellowship program I did with the Dekeyser & Friends foundation, each of the 17 fellows were paired with a family in Saint Arnold Janssen. I was lucky enough to get the Majos. Here's a video of the adventure:
When I stayed with the Majos, Carlo told me he wanted to go to college. Filipinos are frank and realistic about their situations. No one in Carlo's family thought he'd ever be able to make it to college, even though he was smart and the family had come a long way since living in the fishing village. They just couldn't afford it. They could barely afford the 200 pesos ($4) that Roland's elementary school asked for each month to cover the teacher's salary and meager school supplies.
During my six months in the Philippines, I learned a lot about what college can mean to a Filipino. The income someone with a college education can earn has the potential to transform the lives of everyone in their family. Families in the Philippines take care of each other. And I don't mean visiting each other a few times a year. Children grow up to support their parents, as well as their own families. It's a community mentality built around looking out for the people you care about.
A university degree will give Carlo the opportunity to break his family's financial cycle. In fact, he's already the first person in his family to have more than a middle-school education.
I, along with the other Dekeyser fellows, spent a lot of time at the University of San Carlos, where Carlo will study, as JPIC-IDC is directly affiliated with the school. To find out more about San Carlos and the program Carlo will follow, see the University section of this site. If you have more questions, visit the FAQ section.
