Squatter Community Transformed
The Sitio Bagong
Barrio is home to approximately 75 families living in a type of poverty
difficult for us in the United States to imagine. Homes have been pieced
together with materials scavenged from garbage dumps and streets. Running
water and toilet facilities are unheard of in this community of displaced
individuals. See how OBI Philippines helped transform the area and its people.
The plan to build a new shopping center was underway! The property was
purchased. The contractors were signed. Now, the families living on the
land as squatters had to leave. The city government moved them to what
is now known as the Sitio Bagong Barrio.
Building homes the size of an average office from nothing was hard enough
for these impoverished families. The city tried helping by providing the
materials needed to build septic tanks, but the community didn’t
have the resources to have the work done. Clean water was also hard to
obtain. Washing your hands in the bathroom sink wasn’t an option
because there isn’t a bathroom. The only way to get hot water was
by boiling it. The poor could go to a nearby well filled with filthy water,
or when they were allowed, they would draw water from tanks belonging
to more wealthy households in the surrounding area.
OBI Philippines learned of this horrible situation and wanted to help
transform this neighborhood. In partnership with the Northern Luzon Command
of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the local Tarlac government and
the Sapang Maragul people, three fresh water wells were drilled and two
community toilets were built in just over three weeks earlier this year!
Each well was strategically drilled and now serves twenty-five families.
The new wells will not only help prevent water-borne disease, but now
there is enough of this life-giving resource for children and adults to
take baths and clean their homes.
Pastor Rudy Montas, who oversaw this project, recalled a man saying, “We
have been digging for potable water many times in the past but we have
found none. But this, this is clean and potable water at last!"
“[As you can see] the people were doubtful at the beginning because
many organizations and even the local government had promised similar
projects but the people saw very little if nothing at all,” Pastor
Montas commented. “Their perspective changed when they saw the materials
come in and the construction begin.”
In addition to providing these basic resources, The Bayanihan Banking
system was introduced. This knowledge will help the community maintain
the wells and toilets. In the future, the followed system will assist
residents in knowing how to save enough funds required to start small
businesses. That’s not all! While implementing the community transformation
program, Operation Blessing also conducted a weeklong medical mission
in the same area for the first time.
Partners like you have helped to quench the physical, medical and educational
thirst of those living in Sitio Bagong Barrio. There’s more to do!
You gift of $50 can give a thirsty child or adult a lifetime supply of
clean water!
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