A Healthy Start

IN THIS SHANTY TOWN, BUILT ALONG RAILROAD TRACKS NOT FAR from the bright lights and luxury high-rises along Manila’s Baywalk, hope has come from Hawaii.

About 500 families live in this squatter camp in the Paco district of Manila. Residents call it PNR, after the Philippine National Railways. Drugs and violence are not uncommon. About 75 percent of the children do not go to school, but some of the youngest and poorest children are being given a chance that could lead to a better life.

The children get medical care, immunizations, milk and vitamins. Their parents get counseling and training to learn how to better take care of their kids. The program is modeled after Hawaii’s Healthy Start initiative and is designed to promote healthy childhood growth and development and prevent child abuse and neglect. The Honolulu-based Consuelo Zobel Alger Foundation helped get it started here in the Philippines in 1996.

A group called Families and Children for Empowerment and Development, Inc. (FCED), which provides services to the people who live in this area, pioneered the Healthy Start here with the help of the Consuelo foundation.

The foundation paid to send people from FCED to Hawaii to learn about Healthy Start; they funded training, salaries and even put up the money to translate training materials from English into Filipino.

Using the FCED program as a model, the Consuelo foundation also helped start up Healthy Start throughout the Philippines. In the last 10 years, the program has helped 2,256 families through seven different non-profit groups.

The Consuelo foundation spends about $3 million a year in the Philippines starting up and supporting programs to help the poor, especially women and children. It was founded by Consuleo Zobel Alger, an heir of the Ayala family, developer of Makati and one of the country’s largest corporations. Alger married a U.S. Army general and lived in Hawaii for 20 years. The Algers were childless, and the foundation she started in Honolulu funds programs at about 120 partner organizations throughout the Philippines.

In Paco, a group of mothers learn to teach their children about shapes using scissors, glue and paper. There is also a lesson on taking the children to the market, rather than leaving them at home alone.

Raquel Sepillo, 33, says she learned to bring something with her son Danilo Sepillo, Jr., 2, so he has something to occupy him as she shops.

Shirley Obaob, 26, tells the rest of the class that she learned the value of taking her child Ria Jamely Obaob, 2, to the market. It’s a good experience and she’ll learn about the market, Obaob says. "She gets to know something. She won’t be ignorant when the child grows up."

Katrina Ramirez, 18, says through the program she’s learned to discipline her son Karl Dominique Ramirz, 2, in a positive way. "It’s not necessary to spank children," she says.

Since 1996, a larger charity–the Christian Children’s Fund–has taken over funding of the Healthy Start program and has initiated another program to help the children after they finish with Healthy Start.

It’s part of the Consuelo foundation’s philosophy, says president Patti Lyons. The foundation is like "venture capital for social work," she explains. As a program matures or is able to fend for itself, the foundation will look for a new project to start up.

The family support workers in the program make about $58 a month to teach classes twice a month and follow up with home visits to about 20 families. They are selected from the neighborhoods serviced by FCED. But there’s still not enough money to extend it to as many children as need Healthy Start service.

The first children in the program are about nine years old now. Teresita Silva, the president of FCED, says that most of the children are still in school. Some of the children have moved; squatters don’t always stay in one neighborhood and without access to services, she’s lost track of them.

The group is hoping not to lose track of the children in this group. The squatters have been told that the area is being redeveloped to build yet another shopping mall in Manila.

FCED is negotiating with the government to see if the squatters can be re-located in an area where they can continue to receive services.

The program has made a difference for her two-year-old Alliah, says Andrea Hagonay, 24. You can see it, she says, in the way the children look and act.

"The children here (in the program) are more developed physically. They have better values and are able to express themselves," she says. "They say ‘I love you,’ ‘good night.’ Other kids around here are disrespectful."