REGAIN LIFE Foundation
Dear friend,
Here's the sad reality of the street children in the Philippines...
Every day in Manila, more than 75,000 children play, work,
beg, and sleep on the streets of the city. Today, some will die.
Imagine tens of thousands of children, ages 5 to 7, dressed in rags torn to
shreds and with their faces covered in dirt and
soot, as they walk the winding pathways of asphalt. They spend their
days baking under the sun's scorching rays or drudge in the endless
assault of rain and wind, their bare feet being tortured by an
unforgiving environment. As their hungry stomachs rumble, they sleep
away their nights, blanketed with dreams of wealth and comfort while
being watched by a seemingly desolate moon. While some of them knock
on peoples cars, hunting for alms amongst Manila's busy
intersections, others try to earn their daily bread selling
everything from flowers to cigarettes. There are even those who prefer
the meager and shameful incomes procured from illegal trades such as
prostitution and drug trafficking. And there are those who turn to crime or the
empty lures of drug addiction.
These poor children sleep
in doorways, in push carts, under plastic sheets, under bridges, in drainage
pipes, in derelict buildings, in abandoned cars and buses. Some even make shacks
in the trees along the fashionable boulevards. They favor being with the rich
dead in cemeteries where the tombs have roofs. They sleep in doorways on the
pavements or in the church porch. They live along the sea walls and canals.
Because of their dire need of food, street children are forced to go out and
learn the street survival techniques to bring food for their family. When
they see that the food they bring is not enough, they return to the street and
their brothers and sisters sometimes follow them, looking for the source of the
food.
Some children are syndicate slaves, they have been kidnapped or bought from
their families. Some children are hired because they can be paid a lot less than
the minimum wage, they require less food intake, tire less easily and they have
no need to apply for such things as medical plans, SSS (Social Security System)
or retirement. Tasks like carrying heavy cement bags are assigned to these
children because they are said to be stronger anyway, so why not? The truth of
the matter is, with all this hard work, low pay and lack of a medical plan, they
become weaker and weaker, eventually causing them to lose their job and their
income. The result of this is either their younger siblings are forced to work,
or the whole family suffers from starvation.
For the middle to upper classes, these children are usually viewed
with both ends of the spectrum in mind. For some, they are
youngsters who deserve the help and love that others can render for
them, youngsters who need equal opportunities to work for a better
future. But for others, they can be mere street urchins, human trash
who should be locked up and kept out of sight or abused to bring in
more money for already wealthy employers.
Street kids are considered pests by some of the business community—as vermin
to be exterminated.
Many of these children end up in jail.
Often arrested, street children are jailed without proper legal procedures.
They are at times treated as non–persons. In a society where money is the
measure of human worth, the children have no value. In the subhuman conditions
of overcrowded jails and mixed with adults, they are deprived of light,
learning, exercise, family and companionship.
Often they are accused falsely for crimes committed by street children who have been
recruited into gangs controlled and protected by the police. The gangs of street
children prey on the younger and weaker children and sometimes make them sex
slaves, using drugs, food and fear to control and dominate them. The street
children are trained to be drug couriers. Although innocent, the younger and
unprotected can suffer untold abuse by the other street youth. When in the
jails, they can be mixed with criminals, rapists and pedophiles.
They are sexually abused by adult prisoners in overcrowded cells
without even enough space to lie down together. Half of the prisoners have to
stand while the other half sleeps. The only schooling the street children
receive inside is how to be a criminal. They suffer systematic violation of
their human rights from the day they are accused and are incarcerated without
due process of law. When they do get out, they return to the streets and are
able to organize street gangs of children to engage in crime. They are
psychologically damaged and traumatized and sometimes deranged. They face the
dangers of tuberculosis and other diseases while in the prison.
Education
Most street children are illiterate. Having no incentive, money or support and
encouragement to study, they have dropped out of elementary school. They join
street gangs for their own protection and use industrial glue as a mind– and
mood–altering tranquilizer. They work selling plastic bags, newspapers and
flowers or begging for a syndicate. Many are controlled by pimps and sold to sex
tourists on street corners or brought to the casa, a house of prostitution.
Street children are the poorest of the poor; they are the most vulnerable and
weakest and unless they are helped they will be the HIV/AIDS victims of the
future in fact some already are. They are forced to be child prostitutes that attract foreign sex
tourists. They are susceptible to becoming criminals or even terrorists angry at
the adult world that gave them life in the worst misery imaginable.
Health
In the Philippines poverty and pervasive malnutrition are not limited to
families of deprived seasonal workers. Undernourishment is endemic and
increasing throughout most of this archipelago of some 7107 islands, and is
compounded by the prevalence of intestinal parasites and gastrointestinal
diseases which health workers estimate deprive youngsters of at least 5-10% of
the nutritional value in food they do consume. This problem is particularly
prevalent in rural villages and city slums where many people eat with their
fingers.
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Help them
fight back against the disease that is attacking
them!
Beset on all sides by
malnutrition, disease, viruses and parasites.
It's no wonder a lot of these children die
before they reach the age of 10. Give them the
best help you can.
READ MORE... |
According to the Philippine Ministry of Health, nearly 1/2 of all
reported deaths are among infants and children through age 4, and
about 1/2 of the accelerated death rate among those age 5 and
younger is related to malnutrition, compounded by diarrhea, measles,
and malaria which is returning to areas where it once was almost
eradicated. 3 factors critically affect a newborn's survival
prospects: the family size he or she is born into; the time or
spacing between the mother's pregnancies; and the child's birth
order.
Malnutrition is implicated majority of all deaths. It is found in all
societies most commonly identified with the poor. The problem of malnutrition
contributes to half of all child deaths worldwide - a proportion unmatched by
any infectious disease since the Black Death.
There is more than enough for everyone.
Here at Regain Life Foundation, we believe in ABUNDANCE. We believe that
there is more than enough for everyone, we believe in creation and not
competition... and that by GIVING, you do not end up with less BUT with MORE.
Regain Life Foundation is dedicated to orphan and abandoned street children
in the Philippines who are the poorest of the poor to help them BREAK the
poverty cycle and create abundance and prosperity in their lives. We do this by
providing not just their basic needs like shelter, food, clothing, medicine and
education... but also by providing them life skills that are more important than
science and algebra. Child sponsorship
alone will only ever give poor children third world opportunities but combined
with Regain Life's programs, we will give them a REAL chance of a successful and
happy life. This will result in a new generation that will think differently
about what they can achieve for themselves, and what they do for their
community.
We understand that children are our future and Regain Life Foundation is all
about children, their well-being, their growth and the quality of their lives.
That's why we provide them with the best nutrition and empower them to become
all that they wish to be in tomorrow's world.
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Help us Feed,
Shelter and Clothe Them
Apart from just better health
these kids also need a place to call home. They
need a place they can sleep every night, eat,
learn and be loved.
READ MORE... |
Thank you very much for your support.
This site was conjured by the Web-Site-Wizards
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