Workin'

The past few weeks have been centered around a couple work projects, both of which I am very excited about. I am collaborating with my friends and fellow CYF volunteers Kate and Suzie, and we are developing a 12-week module of therapy sessions for our residents that are victims of sexual abuse, which is about 60% of them. Upon arriving at our respective centers, Kate and I were struck with how poorly equipped the social workers were to counsel and handle these residents and their cases. Suzie works for a NGO and her program is more community-based, but she also works with a large population of victims of rape/sexual assault. Most often, their perpetrators are family members (fathers, uncles, brothers, grandfathers) so if and when their case finally gets to court, the girls are usually reluctant to persecute because this man is the breadwinner of the family. If she sends her father to jail, who will support the family? What will happen to their younger siblings, their elderly grandparents that live with them and depend on him, etc? Statistically, mothers side with the father 70% of the time in cases like this (the father being the assaulter). Can you imagine being raped by your father, and your mother encouraging you to just forget about it and come home? These girls (often as young as 10), have a lot of pressure in cases like this, and unfortunately their family just isn't supportive. So the need for therapy with someone safe to discuss these things with is great. When it comes down to it, the people we work with here are in survival mode. Your standard Maslow's hierarchy model. They cant worry about values, morals, right vs. wrong, etc. If they don't have shelter and food for themselves and their children. If their financial supplier goes to jail, they have nowhere to go. Its hard, its depressing, its almost understandable, if you think about their options. They have none. So the three of us have decided to put together this module of group therapy sessions, focusing on topics like guilt, self-esteem, relationships, short and long-term goal planning, sexuality, body awareness, the legal system, etc. We will then train the social workers in different centers all over the region on how to conduct these therapy sessions and leave copies of the modules with the center, in the hopes that this will be sustainable and they will continue to use it when we are gone.
The other project the three of us are working on (we have collaborated because we are all in the same region) is a 3-day leadership "camp" or workshop (fun little acronym depicting the workshops' goals pending) in Manila where high school-aged girls are selected from different centers and communities to attend a leadership/empowerment "camp". We want to line up successful women in Manila and have panel discussions, etc with them and the girls so the girls can find out what sort of steps these women have taken to get to where they are. We are hoping these women will serve as role models and inspire the girls to stay in school, pursue scholarship options for college, etc. We presented this idea to our Filipina counterparts/supervisors and they were onboard. They suggested we find famous actresses to speak to the girls. They also suggested we get makeup and new clothes for the girls. They suggested asking the Congressional Wives' Club to speak to them. No, no, and no. We are not trying to set up a beauty pageant or encourage them to marry someone successful. A couple cultural roadblocks, but we are working around them...
These projects are exciting to us and we dove into them headfirst and are now feeling like we are drowning a little, running around trying to get sponsors onboard, traveling to Manila to meet with various "important" people, etc. but we are passionate about this and feel like it would benefit some of the girls. Re-reading this, it kind of sounds like we are naive little idealists running around the Philippines with a "save the children" banner. But we've been here long enough now that we are fully aware of the flop-ability of these projects too.
So, to sum it up, It's been a productive month. Who knows where these projects will go and if they will end up being sustainable. We are trying, and learning a hell of a lot in the process.


"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it."
-Helen Keller

bath time for the young ones at Haven

last day of the semester at P.A.C.

Mga libing sa Pilipinas - hindi pareho!

(Funerals in the Philippines - not the same!) Last week my co-worker died. She was only 46 and got sick very quickly and by the time they discovered it was cancer, it was too late. Yet one more thing to add to my ever-growing list of things-i-formerly-took-for-granted: Healthcare. People here don't go to the doctor for yearly checkups; they go when they are extremely ill, like Tatty was. And as far as cancer goes, even if it is detected early enough, most people here can't afford chemo or radiation treatment. Tatty was a very dedicated social worker; she had been with DSWD for over 20 years. She was my PC counterpart also, so it had been her job to show me the ropes. She took a leave of absence in July and never came back. The funeral was a very sad affair as expected, and like every other occasion in this country, way too much food was served. Was I the only one that lost my appetite after viewing her body? Yes. Yes I was. The moment I stepped out of the viewing line, someone shoved a plate covered in a plastic bag (makes for easier cleanup at functions like this) in my face loaded up with rice, pancit, some kind of unidentifiable meat, and a packaged cupcake and juice box. Just what I'm in the mood for. A big old plate of food that I just saw in the kitchen being prepared in a bucket. Don't know what else that bucket's held in it's lifetime, don't think i'm gonna eat what was just in it. Oh yeah, and lets not forget I'm nauseus anyway from looking at a dead body. I tried my best to do the move-the-food-around-on-the-plate-trick but everyone was observing my non-eating too attentively; I think it gave them something to talk and whisper about besides what was actually going on. "What's wrong with the American? She isn't eating. Is she sick? On a diet? She doesn't like pancit? Why isn't she eating" etc....this went ON and ON. So I crawled into a parked van with tinted windows and hid until chow time ended. Then we went to the cemetary for the interment. Again, very sad, very interesting from a cultural perspective. For 2 reasons: 1: The leftover pancit was styrofoam boxed and brought to the cemetary to hand out as parting gifts, and 2: The local ice cream man (on bike, not truck) rolled right up onto the cemetary, across plots and headmarkers, ringing his loud, annoying bell, just as the ceremony was concluding. And he had plenty of customers.

with noah, abby, pat, reyna, owen, kate, and keith in mindoro

waiting for the boat in puerto gallera