Case Study - The children of Boracay
Around the streets of Boracay it is not a seldom thing to see children, carrying big stacks of plastic bottles to sell the for the cents of refund. Children in an age, where other children would enjoy their childhood and the protected part of their lives as growing up.
As you walk along the beachwalk in the evening, amongst all the tourists, sitting on the dirty ground – again – children, used by their parets to cause pitty and begg for money.
It’s hard to walk by. And even if you try, it is barely impossible, for the begging also gets physical up to an anoying point. And again it’s the chidren, that get to feel the anger of anoyed people.
Every once in a while they will get chased away by police or shop- owners like dogs.
A privately- run organisation is currently working on an online project, called “Boracay activities". The publishers of Boracay-activities.com are currently building a sailboat, that will be for charter. One of their “giving back” activities will be to have on their “things to do list” - a “sail for the children” day once a month. Means, they are gonna collect children from the beach, provide a free lunch and a sail near the beach. So children do not have to dream of sailing, like the one on the photo – but they can do it.
On Boracay Islsnd of course, just like anywhere in the world, where there is luxury, there is also poverty.
The difficulty will be for parents to keep children from having to work – collecting plasticbottles on a market or begg. It is also a duty of the local government, to step in.
The reality often is, that the parents may not have a job themselves. Thec can barely afford to feed their children and themselves. How can they pay mone for a school uniform, books or even the transport to send their children to school?
That is, what can be done. And an action like that will hopefully trigger the public media to report on it and this way support the whole project. We will get in touch with UNICEF PHILIPPINES and other organisations that care for childrens needs to get support.
There is a lot of money being earned on Boracay Island. After all, with so much money around, there should not be children having to begg or work – but play, like it’s a child’s right.
Just pointing it out often enough, may be a start to change peoples as well as local institutions mids towards poverty amongst children. A poverty, that can be avoided.