Sholing Philippines Project 2010 – 2016

Day 4:

Today was one of the most overwhelming experiences of our
trip so far! We both thought it was going to be another day of packing books at
Tondo, but then Bezza (Mr Berry) offered a place for 2 people to work with the
feeding programme at the dumpsite, and we both jumped at the chance! We
travelled down with Mr Hutchinson and the PCF volunteers in one of the PCF
vans, it was a bit of a squish but we made a laugh out of it! When we arrived,
we set up in a small building made out of un-used shipping containers. It was
good to see that a lot of the chairs, tables and plates were donations from our
schools; we had packed on one of the containers sent out. But that wasn’t the
best part. As the building was not yet complete and had no way of cooking, the
food had already been prepared and was taken with us in huge steel pots. Lots
of children and pregnant women turned up for the food, and a couple of elderly
people including an 82 year old woman (the oldest person on the dumpsite). This
shocked us a bit as the average life expectancy on the dumpsite is 40 years
old! We started by filling bowls full of porridge; some people brought their
own bowls to eat from. A woman who helps with the feeding programme told us
that some of the children take the porridge home to share with their families,
but this would mean that the children who were seriously underweight wouldn’t
get the full nutrition from the food being given to them. Once we had finished
dishing up the food we were asked to help assist the younger children who were
on their own and were not able to feed themselves. This is the time we both
felt like we were truly helping to make a difference to these children lives.
Even though it was so little effort, they appreciated everything we done with
smiles and laughter. The little things we take for granted, like a small bowl
of porridge can really go a long way. We both felt like we had truly achieved
something today, together! Although this experience left us feeling tired and
emotional, we still put on a brave face when we were waving the children goodbye
as we left the dumpsite. We couldn’t wait to tell the rest of the group about
our great experience. It was a lifechanging day we will never forget.

On day on we arrived on the plane (13 hours )then got off with
shocked looks on our faces it was amazing and it was boiling, day 2 we hiked up
a volcano and I took forever, day 3 some of us went on a school trip with some
of the Tondo school children they were sooo cute but on the coach the air
conditioning was on and the children are not used to the coldness so some of
them were sick (ewwww) but still all fun, and day 4, we all went panting,
working on the playground, working on the dumpsite feeding the people and
working with the kids, we have all had a really good time so far!!

Rosie xx J

Tuesday 9th
February: Today was our first proper day of work, we split into three groups to
do different jobs, one group worked in the Tondo school to prepare food for the
children and do other jobs, another took grade one and kindergarten kids out
on a field trip, and the last group (including me) went to the new school by
Smoky Mountain to start building the playground. This group included; me, Alex,
Ben, Stephen, Julia, Chloe, Grace and Charlotte.

We left or
hotel at 9:00 am to go to the Tondo school where we picked up our tools then we
went straight to the new school to start work. After sorting all the parts of
an adventure playground we then had to dig a lot of holes for them to go in. We
all paired up (I went with Stephen) and started to dig, I was surprised to see
that a lot of the ground, like at the Tondo dumpsite, was full of rubbish such
as plastic bags. It took Stephen and me a little while to get our first hole
dug but in the hole next to us (Chloe and Grace’s hole) they were having
problems because there were many large concrete blocks in their hole, Mick and
Nozza had to brake through them using a heavy Drill. By lunch most of the holes were completed but we had to take
a few brakes because it was so hot and we were all sweating a lot. However Ben
and Alex were machines and ploughed double the amount of holes as me and
Stephen we just couldn’t keep up with them. We all packed our own lunch but we
still went back to the Tondo School to refill our water. Before we left we had
time to talk to the kids, Jack Mac and Charlie taught them sayings such as ‘woo
nick’ to say to Mr Wilkinson. The second half of the day consisted of moving
all the parts of the adventure play ground, putting some of it into the right holes
and starting to assemble them. This took a lot longer than the digging so we
could not finish it today. Working in the heat took a lot of energy and before
we went back to the hotel Ben, Julia Charlotte and Grace all started to fall
asleep.

As tiring as it was it was still quite fun so I am looking
forward to tomorrow.

Yours faithfully

Don Buss jr

First day of work and it was HOT! Different groups got spilt
up to go to the dumpsite, the container school, Tondo school and field trip. I
went to the container school with Grace, Charlotte, Alex, Ben, Mick, Nozza,
Daniel, Stephen Jeffers, Hutch, Tom, Mark and Julia. We arrived at the school
and started digging holes. As a group we did around 8 holes. Me and Grace had
thee rubbish hole found 3 pieces of MASSIVE cement. In the end Nozza just
whipped out the drill and got rid of them therefore he could put the big wooden
plank in to finish the playground off. All together was a good days work and
REALLY hot and sweaty, yum J

Chloe Fagan x

We have arrived in Manila and settled into the accommodation. Today we took a day trip out to the Taal Volcano, and tomorrow we begin work at the PCF schools… More soon!

We have arrived in Hong Kong after over 11 hours on the plane… two hours to recover then another 3 hour flight to Manila!

When Eric Freeman and Dave Berry first talked about walking
from the south coast of Wales to the north coast of Wales, it seemed a good
idea at the time.

The plan was to start from Caswell Bay just west of Swansea,
journeying north through the Carmarthenshire Fans to Llandovery. Then to travel
via the Elan Valley, and on through the Plynlimon range to Machynlleth and the
mid way point

The route north would then take a route to the west of Cader
Idris, across the Mawddach Estuary to Barmouth, through the Rhinogs to
Trawsfynydd before traversing the Snowdonia National Park to end at Bangor
Pier, a total journey of just over 200 miles.

The pair planned to start the walk at the beginning of September
and the trek was scheduled to last two weeks.

As the pair began the planning, it quickly dawned on them
that some of the legs of the journey were likely to be very long days indeed.
Undeterred, accommodation was negotiated for some of the legs, and the pair
planned to bivouac where shelter simply was not available.

What the pair had failed to consider was the likelihood of
poor weather. But this was Wales. August had been a very wet month in Wales, so
the moors were already saturated. During the first week of September the rain
continued every day. Footpaths became streams. Streams became raging torrents,
and many of the rivers which normally could be negotiated with ease, became
impassable.

By the middle of the second week, as the pair crossed the
Rhinogs to Trawsfynydd on the wettest day of the trek, both had reached the low
point of the whole journey.With three days still to go, the prospect of more
wet weather was something neither wanted even to think about.

In fact, the
next day dawned bright and sunny- in fact for the next three days the sun shone
under a cloudless sky. What a difference a day makes.

With good weather forecast for the last three days of the
journey, the pair looked forward to the prospect of excellent views as they crossed the Moelwyns, the Snowdon
range, and the Glyders.

Early in the journey Eric and Dave had spent the night in a
shed, so the last night spent at
the Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel in the heart of Snowdonia was a welcome luxury.

The hotel, which was the base for the British Everest team
in 1951 as they trained for their successful bid to be the first men on the
roof of the world, has changed little in the intervening years. A memorable
experience.

The following day, and a weary but very satisfied pair
walked into Bangor at the end of a 200 mile journey in eleven days. Along the
way they had met some incredible people, and received great encouragement for
their fundraising for the Sholing Campus Philippines Project 2010.

Their efforts will raise more than £2,000 for the Project,
and the proceeds will be used directly to improve the quality of life for some
of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children on the planet.

If you would like to support their efforts, please contact
Dave Berry at Sholing Junior School, Middle Road, Southampton, or by e-mail at david.berry@sholing-jun.southampton.sch.uk

Anyone who has witnessed at first hand the poverty of
Manila’s underclass knows that they are amongst the very poorest people on the
planet.

Men, women and children forage an existence from the
mountains of garbage discarded by more fortunate Filipinos.

For almost ten years, the Hedge End based charity, the
Philippines Community Fund (PCF) led by the energetic Jane Walker have
struggled against almost superhuman odds to provide education, health care and
training programmes to the community at the Pier 22 dumpsite.

When Tropical Typhoon Ketsana roared across the northern
Philippines on Saturday, Manila was right in the path of the worst storm to hit
the region in more than forty years.

More than 40cms of rain fell in just 12 hours, more than the
average rainfall for the whole of September.

The massive deluge of water caused rivers to break their
banks and set off mudslides which engulfed whole communities. As the floodwater
receded, putrid mud covered large
areas of the capital.

PCF have reported that at least ten of their staff have lost
everything- all they have are the clothes on their backs. The Principal of the
Tondo school almost lost two of her children who were rescued by a neighbour as
they were about to be swept away
in the raging torrent.

Jane Walker reports that the rubbish dump, home to many of
the children who attend the Tondo school is like a sponge, and the makeshift
homes are expected to collapse as the waters recede.

PCF is providing emergency food and clothes and a team are
cooking round the clock for the community. The school is full of children and
parents who are sat on desks to avoid the water which is two feet deep.

In a communiqué from Manila today Jane Walker said “We are
overwhelmed but surviving. We have just started to see the first sick children
coming in. We need money for medicines, and to help us to provide emergency
food and clean water to the community”.

Students from Grove Park Business and Enterprise College
travelled to the Philippines in 2008 to build an adventure playground for the
children, and to work with the charity in painting and planting programmes.

Next year, students from The Sholing Technology College and
ex students from Grove Park will return to the Philippines to provide a second
adventure playground at the site of a new school presently nearing completion,
which is being construced from 78 redundant shipping containers.

Margaret, a lay preacher at a local church holds a coffee morning every year in aid of action for children. This year she invited me along so that I could raise money for my individual sponsorship.

In the weeks before the coffee morning I contacted Laura, a member of the Philippine Community Fund. She gave me glass jewellery, magazine bracelets, ringpull hand bags, juice carton hand bags and wooden flutes to sell. All of which are made in the Philippines. As well as this I made cakes, scones and biscuits to sell. And I raided the loft to find items to put on a bring and buy stall.

On the day over 40 people came to the coffee morning. They were very impressed with all of the items on sale from the Philippines and the big sellers were woven crisp wrapper handbags and ring pull clutch bags, perfect for christmas parties! The items were so nice I even bought some for myself.

I sold £265.50 worth of PCF products, all of which was sent back to the charity. From the cakes and bring and buy sell I made £170 which went towards my airfare and individual contribution.

The coffee morning went so well I am hoping to sell some more products from PCF at a Christmas market in December.

Cant wait untill the next fundraiser at the Rose Bowl

Laura the Explorer <:o)

For our team building we went to Woodmill and done a number of activities, Low Ropes course, Tunnelling, Raft building, and three other excercises but i cant remember the names of .

When most of the members were here Mr Berry took most of the lads first to Woodmill then when everyone was at Woodmill all of the members was expected to go into the class room, to be place into the three groups. I was placed into group three and in our group there was all of the Sam’s which was confuseing but easy to remember the names . I didn’t like calling out Sam because I felt rude because i kept saying not you the other Sam and that was rude but I a appolagized to them.

Our first excercise was this platform activity we had to use this plank of wood to get across every obstacle I drop it it once then Hannah fell and toughed the floor but we finished the excercise in the end.

After that we had to walk like a group the same time the same foot. There were two pieces of wood with rope attached to it and the ropes made handles for us to hold, so that every foot we lifted we had to move the wood forward and turn it so that we could travel around the corners.

We then did the Tunnelling, we had to wear these orange body suits and a helmet, only one persone could have a helmet torch so the forth person of our group had that and every so often Cassy turned the torch towards the back then back to the front so that every so often everyone could see something in the tunnel. We were half way through the tunnel Rosie shouted that there was a spider and me and this Sam (can’t remember the surname) was like kill it before he gets to it and i said to him your jokeing right i’m scared of spiders. Where the tunnel makes a echo I could hear everyone laughing at us, I was so embarased but it was so funny.

After the Tunnelling we, done this long rope mini game with group two (well I think it was that group )there was this long rope that was bended into a horse shoe type of shape but very big with eight knots on each side, and each group had to untie the rope before the other group (it was a small competion we won of course because group THREE is the best, better then all the rest ) But the only problem with this excercise is that we had our right hand on the right hand side of the knot and the right hand was not aloud off the rope no matter what, then our left hand was able to untie the knot. Where we couldn’t take our right hand off the rope we had to go through the knot as well ( I held a big bunch of rope as I went through the knot) so by the end on the 8th knot every one had to through the knot to be able to finish the excercise (by that point it got confuseing because everyone kept forgetting which hoop to go through) When we finished the excercise group two still had about two more knots to go through but they weren’t really comuinicating with each other.

We done that tricky excercise then we done the low ropes course ( I love doing the ropes course it’s one of my favourite hobbies ! ) but there was a twist we had this heavy bell and we had five chances of it ringing on each obstacle and we had to go aroung the course (it was amazing a little bit to easy i think we done it quiker then our instructer thought it would take us !!!) As we done it so quick we done it again but with out the bell and the whole group could only be on one obstacle at a time therefore it was harder and it was squishy then we had to go the qiucker way round but it was harder we went though these swinging tires and it was hard but it was so fun I would do anything to do that again.

We wern’t aloud to do the raft building before luch so there we were eating our lunch in the class room ( it had rained just before lunch !!) And everyone was changin into spare clothing for the activity.

Finaly we all had out kit on, and was geting ready to build our raft.

Each group had five long pieces of wood, four barrels, and loads of different sizes of rope ion two colours well we had red and green, well every group had different colours.

Okay we were putting our raft in the water after seeing the other groups raft’s break apart in the water so we were scared about ours falling apart in the water, we were paddaling ( I fell in second my leg sliped off the frame as I was about to sit on the barrel ) As we got around the irland we saw one of the groups raft’s remains being pushed by one of the helpers on a cannue then the next thing our group new was the back barrel behind me gave out and four of us fell in the water. The left side started to sink so I jumped back on the barrel to help it weigh up ( well much difference that made that work)

We got back to TSTC and that was the best team buildin I have done.

By Marie-Louise Denny

-x-