Housing/Land Issues/Roads

Today, our GIN iCare group visited the Barangay San Juan Community. Waling towards the gate of the village, what welcomed us were the warm smiles of children. We were soon divided up in 10 groups of 2 and 2 students from the community joined each group so to assist us in the interviews.

Kids welcoming us at BSJ

My partner and I were assigned to go around the houses in the village and surveyed 9 residents on the topics of ‘Housing/ Land issues/ Roads’. Though we were nervous at first, we soon found the people to be friendly and approachable. Since the residents spoke very little English, the 2 students played a significant role as translators, so to allow successful interviews to be conducted.

The first question was asked them was “How long have you been living in your house”. The answers varied from 7 years to 30 years. For some people, their current house has been their house for all their lives. We found this factor to be different from our lives since most of us have moved around several times in our 16~18 years of life.

We were shocked to find out that most of the families have at least 4 people living together, as those houses were very small and were just big enough for 2 or 3 people. All the houses were built by the men in the house (brothers, husbands, and fathers).  We were intrigued by this because we never imagined that the houses were built by themselves since we’ve only lived in houses built by others.

Only 1 of 9 houses we visited had a tap inside their house and all the rest accessed water from outside their house. We could not imagine how inconvenient it would be to not be able to get water at home. If I have the opportunity, I would like to raise money at our school to build water taps in those houses which would make their daily life much more convenient.

M of the people in the villages will start their day by making breakfast, tidying the house and cleaning the surroundings of their house. It was clear that cleaning their home was considered as an important routine in their daily life as their surroundings including the pathways between houses were covered with wet cement as unclean water. It was shocking to see that their living environment was so different than ours, as most of us lives in lush areas, where good hygiene is considered to be a norm.

As different houses in the village were built by different people, usually by the people who live in the house themselves, most of the houses were different in styles and structure. But most of the houses have one thing in common, which was that their roof was made of metal strips stapled together, which causes a major problem for most of them as when experiencing torrential rain, the water will drip into the houses, causing the inner parts of the house to be wet. Also as Philippines experiences tons of typhoons every year, the structure of the houses may not be able to withstand the strength of the wind, causing the collapses of those houses.

Most of the people we interviewed generally enjoyed living in their house and are pleased with the construction and structure of their house. Only a few of them find their houses too small and are not safe enough for their children. It was shown that a change in the pathways/roads between the houses was strongly requested by the residents in the village, as they find the pathways rather narrow. Also, most of them wished that they had a concrete roof which will be able to protect them from the rain and other natural phenomenon.

At one point of the survey process, we met a woman who spoke rather good English. I thought this was our chance to actually get an insight on the thoughts and feelings of the residents at Barangay San Juan Community. Her eyes were swelled with tears when she mentioned her living situation in the village, and that she was afraid that her house will get demolished one day. If I have an opportunity I would like to live somewhere else, said the woman with sewing materials in her hand. I told her that I will make sure to spread her voice and we both wished her good luck. Her desperateness and hopelessness touched the very bottom of my heart, I promise that one day, when I have the power to change this situation, I WILL.

Tiffany (Chinese International School, Hong Kong), Su Mee (New International School, Thailand)