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- Submitted by: mayanb
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- Date Submitted: 03/18/2010 09:12 AM
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THE URBAN POOR
Surely you don't bother much about exploring the small streets of Cebu, if you're not that curious. What could be behind all these buildings and good looking houses, or the stores that line up the road? I wasn't curious enough then, until one day I saw something very surprising.
I and three other school mates were assigned in a place called Barangay Lutaw-lutaw located in Tisa, Labangon, Cebu, for our National Service Training Program (NSTP). In partner with Euphrasia - an institution that helps teach both in- and out-of-school children living in depressed areas, we were volunteers to help tutor these kids every Saturday of the week for at least two hours, teaching Math, English and Science suitable for their age.
On our first session, it was quite a surprising one. From the main road of Banawa going to Labangon, there is this small street across a big, old gate that said SYS Printing, on the right side, where our location for the tutorial was. As we walked in, there were decent looking houses on the left and on the right. Until at the end of the alley we had to go in between the houses, walk for about two minutes until we reached the area of Lutaw-lutaw.
It was depressing to see so many people live this way, with very small houses that stand right next to each other, having only two or three sources for water (deepwater pumps) and very narrow ways to walk through. You see plenty of kids just roaming around, maybe playing; some children didn't have clothes on. Mothers were always by the pumps doing laundry while the teenagers just by stand in the corners.
The tutorial sessions were held in about a 6 square metered chapel with only four small benches and one small blackboard. We always had trouble with chalk and tables for the children to use, but tutorials were successful, nonetheless.
The whole area was called Lutaw-lutaw (literally means floating) since it suffered many floods before it was urbanized in 1991. It became...
Surely you don't bother much about exploring the small streets of Cebu, if you're not that curious. What could be behind all these buildings and good looking houses, or the stores that line up the road? I wasn't curious enough then, until one day I saw something very surprising.
I and three other school mates were assigned in a place called Barangay Lutaw-lutaw located in Tisa, Labangon, Cebu, for our National Service Training Program (NSTP). In partner with Euphrasia - an institution that helps teach both in- and out-of-school children living in depressed areas, we were volunteers to help tutor these kids every Saturday of the week for at least two hours, teaching Math, English and Science suitable for their age.
On our first session, it was quite a surprising one. From the main road of Banawa going to Labangon, there is this small street across a big, old gate that said SYS Printing, on the right side, where our location for the tutorial was. As we walked in, there were decent looking houses on the left and on the right. Until at the end of the alley we had to go in between the houses, walk for about two minutes until we reached the area of Lutaw-lutaw.
It was depressing to see so many people live this way, with very small houses that stand right next to each other, having only two or three sources for water (deepwater pumps) and very narrow ways to walk through. You see plenty of kids just roaming around, maybe playing; some children didn't have clothes on. Mothers were always by the pumps doing laundry while the teenagers just by stand in the corners.
The tutorial sessions were held in about a 6 square metered chapel with only four small benches and one small blackboard. We always had trouble with chalk and tables for the children to use, but tutorials were successful, nonetheless.
The whole area was called Lutaw-lutaw (literally means floating) since it suffered many floods before it was urbanized in 1991. It became...