The Image: When we arrived at this now familiar slum, we found these two children, maybe sisters, scrounging around the rubbish for food. It's a sight we see everytime we come to Tacloban, Philippines. This slum has hundreds of children covered in sores and in bad health. We were able to buy food for some of them taking bags of rice from house to house. Today we are taking mattresses which cost only $25 so they don't have to sleep on the ground of thise shacks.
We were hosted as guests of the city yesterday and one of our friends from the health department saw the pictures and was horrified! 'Where is this?' she asked. I told her it was at Paseo slum which is visible from the window of their downtown offices. They said they had never seen this. I said, "I have been here 8 times in 4 years and I see it everytime!" They vowed to correct the issue immediately.
The mayor who is a good man and bringing many changes will address this rubbish dump and clean it up.
As crazy as it sounds, If they clean this up, they may take away food supplies from these kids. The discarded chicken bones from KFC and McDonalds might be the only protein they get.
The city plans to work with Habitat for Humanity of some other organisation to relocate these families to homes with clean water and new houses close to transport.
Will it be too late for kids like this?
POST: Thanks for all the votes everyone
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