Project aim
We hope to raise enough money to provide the sole daily meal for the poorest students of Umapad Elementary School which presently has a total of 1200 children over Year 2 to Year 7.
About the project
Umapad Elementary School is a state school in Cebu, Philipines located next to the city rubbish dump. It provides free education for 1200 children whose parents are scavengers at the dumpsite. The families make a living from finding and selling scrap in the rubbish heaps seven days a week. Their jobs earn them about 130 pesos (£1.90) a day, hardly enough to provide for themselves, let alone their entire family. Education is the only way out of poverty.
The photos below show the rubbish dump and children spending long, scorching days working to find anything they can sell to buy food for their family, to simply sustain life.
People who visit the school for the first time discovered that they can smell the school before they see the school! When one of us visited the school, all the students were packed like sardines into the muggy, stifling classrooms. There are about 50 - 60 children per class, all using different text books for the same subject as there is not enough money to buy the same textbooks. Pencils are stumps, about 3 inches long and many children have no shoes. Imagine trying to study in these conditions- hot, smelly, noisy, cramped, uncomfortable, and with few resources.
Life for people living in the rubbish dump is very hard and many of the families are unable to provide even one meal a day for their children. There is a program that provides 30 children with their daily meal, consisting of rice, an egg or some chicken pieces and a banana. The cost of this meal is £0.60. As this is a project that requires long term support, we hope to raise £2,000 and that would feed 10 children for 300 school days (one academic school year).
One of our families has donated stationery and textbooks to the school to help improve the quality of their learning.
Some 11 year olds weigh only 12 kilograms!
Another massive benefit- parents who scavenge everyday will not have to use their money to feed their children everyday, and at the same time, their children receive an education, allowing them to, in the future, get a job and provide for their families. Without these meals, parents will not allow the children to attend school as the children have to be scavenging on the tip instead to provide food for themselves.
60p a day is a very small price to pay for such benefits but is out of their reach.
For £2, you would feed a child for 3 days.
For £6, you will help him/her escape hunger for 10 days.
A generous donation of £36 will help feed a child for 2 months!
A collective sum of just £200 will help feed one child for a year of school time.
And it all starts with you.
We thank everyone in advance for their generosity and willingness to make the world a better place!
And an even BIGGER Thank you from the hungry children!
Felix Bryce-Smith, Shern Lee and Anton Shumeyko
Pilgrims School, Winchester, United Kingdom.