[00:00:00] Jane Walker, I'm thrilled and honored to have you as my first ever podcast guest.
[00:00:04] You're someone who I've looked to as a mentor and inspiration because your story is absolutely awe inspiring and one which has touched hundreds of thousands of lives in the most profound way. You are the founder of Purple Community Fund and the Upskills Foundation in the Philippines, which are both incredible organizations which have deeply impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people over the last 30 years.
[00:00:28] And thousands of students have been fed, educated, and provided healthcare for 18 years per student. Through your work and your team's work, this has provided education and all the basics children's children and families should have, so they can go to university and get degrees, which has in turn enabled them to get well respected and top jobs in the country.
[00:00:50] You've also helped children go from picking rubbish on the rubbish dumps to becoming world-class ballerinas through your organization's support. I'm sure there's countless other amazing stories, and this support is key to helping these amazing people of the Philippines to pull their whole family out of poverty through empowering them to do it themselves, should I say, and giving them the tools that they need to do it.
[00:01:12] So it is real holistic change from the ground up, and it's real grassroots work. And you've also received an MBE from the Queen for your work and helping impoverished children and families break that poverty cycle. And I'm sure nothing will mean more than the deep love that you've got for the people of the Philippines through the impact you and your team have made over the years.
[00:01:34] So I just wanna say welcome to the show and thank you for being here today. Oh, thank you. There's big praise indeed. I know. It is well deserved and as I said, thrilled and honored to have you here. Okay. If you can, let's start at the beginning, if you just walk us through, how you got started in helping children and families in the Philippines.
[00:01:52] Okay. I guess if we start halfway through, so I was working with News International. I was promoted lots of times and I got to a point of promotion in London with News International, with the Mirror group, and I was really not sure. If I wanted to spend the rest of my career in the newspaper industry, I definitely didn't always agree with the ethics and the values.
[00:02:23] It didn't really align with mine, and I just felt that it wasn't really a very purposeful life. So I asked for a sabbatical. They gave me a three month sabbatical, and I decided to go to the Philippines because when I knew it was English speaking made it nice and easy. And I heard that they had some of the best beaches in the world, and that just seemed like a really good place to just go and spend three months and just think about my future.
[00:02:49] But actually, as soon as I landed, I bought a newspaper and I started to read about families who were being evicted from squatter areas. And there were lots of images of bulldozers flattening down homes and children, just looking really lost and forlorn. And it was something obviously we didn't ever see here in the UK.
[00:03:09] So I jumped in a taxi and I asked the taxi driver to take me to the largest squatter area that he knew, and he started to take me along row 10 in Tondo, which was heading towards Smokey Mountain. And Smokey Mountain was closed in 1995, but it was the largest and tallest dump site in the world of its time.
[00:03:30] It was nearly a hundred feet tall. And as I was along that road, I asked the taxi driver to stop because I started to see all these shanty housing and it was just like secondhand pieces of wood just nailed together, old sheets of corrugated metal. There might have been a car tire holding the roof down and it was so tiny.
[00:03:50] I couldn't work out how a family could live in it. So I got out the taxi to have a closer look. And as I started to walk along the road, I saw these two little boys — one had a hook in his hand and the other had a sack. And I followed them up to what looked like a dirt track. But when I got to the top of the dirt track, it was actually an enormous landfill and it was like nearly 25 hectares.
[00:04:13] So it was huge. And there were loads and loads of people, just hundreds and hundreds of people on this landfill site with these big hooks in their hand and these sacks and just jabbing them into the ground and picking up pieces of plastic or metal and putting them into their sack. And that's where these two boys were.
[00:04:30] And in the background I could see all the shanty housing and I'd realized I'd stumbled on like this whole community of people, but there didn't seem to be any kind of NGO or charities or any like structured buildings. It was just all handmade buildings that looked like they were gonna fall apart.
[00:04:50] There was no structure. And I stood and I just stared at these kids and I couldn't really take it in, but I knew they were working and that ethic — that child working — was something that we really hadn't seen on our TVs. And it was just, I think because there was just nobody else there, but just me, this one kind of white woman there, just looking at these children.
[00:05:14] And I worked out they should be in school 'cause it was Philippine school time. So I was thinking how would they ever have a different life if they don't go to school? And it really became like a real big epiphany moment for me because I looked at them and I just thought if it wasn't for my education.
[00:05:35] I would've had a very different story to tell. So I came from a reasonably dysfunctional family. And when I was 15, my parents decided it was time for me to leave home. And so that was it. I was on my own — they gave me 15 pounds and I was on my way to Bournemouth actually.
[00:05:56] And I thought what can I do? I'm on the bus and I'm thinking, what can I do in Bournemouth? And I thought I know it's a seaside town, so maybe I can work in a hotel. So when I got off the bus, I traipsed around the city asking for work in hotels, and eventually I was offered a job as a live-in chambermaid.
[00:06:13] And I was safe and I wasn't on the streets. And I made every effort to make sure that I did as many jobs as I could and to save as much money as I could, was never gonna be in that situation again. And I was lucky because I had my education and then eventually I got a job in the newspaper.
[00:06:30] And I was just on telesales. I did really well. Then I did door to door, and then the next thing, a few years later, I'm running the department and so on. And all of that happened because I had that education and in that moment I felt incredibly grateful that my parents gave me that. And I think it was probably the first time I've ever felt grateful to my family, so it was, even that was very freeing. But when I saw the kids, I was like, I want to do something. I don't wanna just look at these children and go, oh, how awful. And then walk away and do nothing. It just — how can I sleep at night?
[00:07:10] If I don't, if I don't do something. But I had no idea at the time what to do. Just that I knew I wanted to give them some kind of hope. So I met a local pastor, I think you would say, from a church, and I asked him if he would help me build a little daycare center so that these children could have somewhere safe to go.
[00:07:31] So it was only for 60 children. I came back to the UK. I was married, I had my son. My marriage broke up fairly quickly after my son was born, but I still carried on supporting this little daycare center. And at the same time I was studying and reading how to register a charity in the Philippines and in the UK.
[00:07:52] And why were there still child workers when there was so much international intervention on the Smoky Mountain dump site and these children — child labor hadn't ended at that point. So what I started to realize was poverty at this level is at its most severe. So when families are really living on trash heaps, they're often looking for food that they can get from the trash heaps to eat.
[00:08:17] Their income is so low, they have no access to education, no access to healthcare. It's really severe chronic poverty, and I learned that it was generational as well. So just providing access to education to me didn't make sense because if they didn't have enough food to eat, if they didn't have good medical care, how could they successfully be a student?
[00:08:47] So I started to think about having an integrated service plan so that there was access to education, but there was also access to healthcare for them. There was also access to good, healthy nutrition. And that's initially how it started. And I went back to the dump site and I asked the families, what would you like me to do?
[00:09:07] What else can I do? And they said: Educate our children. We don't want our children to live like we do. And it was okay, but where do I do this? And they directed me to this really old warehouse. It was completely filled with trash. It was really dilapidated, but it was owned by the government. And I found out that if I went to the Office of Special Concerns at the Palace in Manila, I could ask for permission to use the building.
[00:09:36] So that's what I did. And when I got there, they were really helpful and they actually helped me register as a charity in the Philippines, which is incredible. And we signed a memorandum of agreement on the building, and that became the first building. And the parents and myself, we were all shoveling all this trash out, putting it in sacks, painting the rooms, trying to make it a place where children could come.
[00:09:59] So that was really how it started. So quite simply, but bit by bit, it grew and developed over the years. That's absolutely incredible. And it started with a small seed. Yeah. When you stumbled across those two children, and you came back and created that initial home for the 60 children.
[00:10:19] And is that — was that the foundation, the beginning of what was to come? Yeah, I think so because I wanted — I knew I wanted to do something, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. So running the daycare was — I thought it would give the children happy memories, because that was something that was important to me because when I look back on my childhood, I didn't have very many happy memories.
[00:10:41] So I wanted to give them some happy memories. But it was only 60 children, and there were hundreds of them still. So I was very much aware that it was just a drop in the ocean and it really wasn't life changing. But as my son got a little bit older and as I studied a bit more, that's when I realized actually if I'm always gonna just do this as a little project on the side, it's not really gonna be life changing.
[00:11:08] And that's what I wanted it to be. So then I knew I need to drop my career. I need to change everything. And it didn't seem like a sacrifice at the time. It just felt like a really logical step forward to take. And then I registered it as a charity in the UK and started. And it was really, it sounds like it was like just putting one foot in front of the other right.
[00:11:31] Or did you know, it was like this when you first went there and helped these children and you created that place for the 60 children and started creating those lovely memories. Did you have a clear plan — okay, this is what I need to do — or is it like one foot in front of the other and you just felt your way through it?
[00:11:48] Yeah, I just definitely felt my way through it. I knew that I wanted to make a significant difference. I knew that I wanted those children to have the benefit of an education, but my family had never given to charity before, so the whole concept of charity was really new to me.
[00:12:07] So I had a lot of learning to do. So I think those early years, while the daycare was still running, it gave me time to really study and understand. Yeah. And it felt very much like the way that you would run a business. But of course the difference is that you have a board of trustees for your governance and all your money is.
[00:12:27] Given away. So yeah, that learning curve. So I think I knew that if I was gonna make a bigger difference, it had to be a registered charity. It couldn't just be my money doing it — 'cause it would never grow that way. I would run out of money, which in fact I did. So making it a charity was great because then I could go to groups and present and tell them about the work and hopefully they would make donations, which happened.
[00:12:51] And I think the first year, I think we raised about 30 or 40,000, and then the second year it was 70 or 80,000. And then each year the income grew. And with more money, I was able to do more things. And I moved to the Philippines and started just like a preschool.
[00:13:09] 'Cause they were really young, the kids. And it started with a couple of hundred children. They came in — funny enough, I met somebody in an internet cafe. It was just when emails and the internet was just really coming online. And I was struggling a bit with it, was trying to email my sister.
[00:13:25] And he asked me what I was doing and I told him and he said, oh, can I come with you and have a look? So I took this guy up to the dump site and he just stood there and literally just cried. And he said to me that he used to live in India as a little boy and a British woman came to his village and educated 10 children in his village.
[00:13:47] He was one of them. And he was now an investment banker in Jersey. So he was gonna pour money into this and said to me that he'd give me enough money to educate 200 of the children. And that's how it started. That's absolutely incredible. Yeah. It was a miracle, really. And this is what I want to get clear on — the actual dump site and what it actually looks like, because I think that's quite alien to a lot of people.
[00:14:14] It was to me, certainly before I knew. So if you can just articulate for our viewers what the actual dump site is, why are people living on it and why haven't there been interventions from the government to help, support these people?
[00:14:31] Yeah. The dump site does look like a landfill site and the dump trucks go up there multiple times in the day and drop waste. And as I was along that road — when people are literally living there — it's an enormous landfill, nearly 25 hectares.
[00:15:04] We'll pop that on screen. It might be less than that. Maybe be like 60 tons. I think it's more than 60 tons a day though. What was staggering to me though when I went there — we obviously flew in 2017, we took our team there 'cause we were contributing on a small scale as much as we could at the time to the amazing work you're doing.
[00:15:20] And what blew me away is the size of it — essentially an enormous rubbish dump, 25 hectares. Which is enormous. We'll put a comparison on screens. I'm not sure what that is in acres, but it's gonna be a lot of football fields.
[00:15:41] And what staggered, blew my mind about this was how big it was. And how much — it's essentially decades of rubbish built up over years and years. And at the time when I was there, 50,000 people were living on it. And that was where they had all their shanty housing.
[00:16:00] And if you can explain — why do they live there and how do they generate income? Yeah, sure. I think it comes down to lack of education. Because when we surveyed families, most of them had only done like maybe up to year three in junior school.
[00:16:23] So they really just hadn't been able to get the benefit of an education. And without a university degree in the Philippines, you actually can't even work in McDonald's. So it's really critical that you get a university degree. It's not enough to graduate from senior school — that even isn't gonna give you work.
[00:16:43] So it's really important that you get that full complement of education. Only coming away with junior school just means that there is no available work. So what choices do families have? They can either beg and put their children on the streets to beg for money.
[00:17:01] They can resort to crime. They can get involved in the sex industry, or they can go and live on a dump site and they can pick trash and sell it for recycling. And these families have chosen that as the most honorable way of earning money, which is why I think I have so much respect for them because they didn't take the easy option.
[00:17:25] They didn't abuse their children in any way. They wanted to keep the family unit together. And the only way to do that was to move on the dump site. And I always used to think the parents were the ones that got the children to work, but it truly wasn't that way because when I moved from preschool into junior school.
[00:17:44] Lots of the children started to drop outta school and I asked them why, and they just turned around to me and they said we want our brothers and sisters to enjoy the school first. Now we have to go back and work. And I was like why? Why do you have to work? And they're like — we need to help mom and dad earn money for food.
[00:18:01] And there was no resentment in them. That was just a responsibility that they took on 'cause they knew that they would go hungry without money to eat. So they gladly went and did it. But it was devastating for us because I had dreams of them becoming doctors, nurses, whatever they wanted to do.
[00:18:21] And here they were dropping outta school in the first few years. And I asked my teachers why that was happening? And they said, oh, they didn't think they were interested in education, but it didn't ring true to me 'cause I saw how excited they were to come to school and they enjoyed having their breakfast.
[00:18:41] And so I was like, okay, I think I need to just — I don't get this, this is not a culture that I understand. So I asked some families if I could stay with them at weekends on the dump site. And that's what I did. So on a Friday afternoon, I would go onto the dump site with them and I'd become a waste picker.
[00:19:01] I'd learn about what waste you can recycle, what waste you can't. I'd spend the evening with them — we'd just cook off a charcoal stove. Sometimes it would just be a pot of rice, sometimes it would just be noodles — it wasn't substantial food. It was no meat or anything like that.
[00:19:16] It was really just a very high carb kind of diet. And I went to take a bath and they'd give me a bowl of water and I'd stand in the bowl of water with a piece of soap about the size of a 10 pence piece and just wash with my clothes on. So I just had a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and I'd have to wash like that because there was no privacy.
[00:19:37] Lots of people used to stand and just laugh and look at me 'cause they'd never seen that before. Even just things like, how do you go to the toilet there? 'Cause there were no toilets. So you'd have a bucket in the home, which you could wee in. But if you needed to do anything else, they'd give you a piece of newspaper and you'd go in the newspaper, wrap it up in a little plastic bag and throw it on the dump site.
[00:19:57] And that was their toilet. So you start to get a sense of how unhygienic all of this is. Rats were everywhere running around under the shanties on the roof. I found at night some of the families when I stayed there, they used to try and wrap my feet up in towels because they said that rats will sometimes nibble at your heels, your hard skin.
[00:20:20] It wasn't unusual for children's fingers to be bitten by rats. So I started to get this sense and I'd ask them, what do we have for breakfast in the morning? And they'd show me the pot — the charcoal pot — with this burnt rice at the bottom. And that was for breakfast. So I started to get an understanding of, oh, people actually don't even have a week's worth of food here.
[00:20:44] It's just one meal to another meal and then they have to work to get enough money to be able to eat food for that day. So a completely alien concept for us in the UK — like we have enough food in our cupboards, probably if we never went to the shop, we could probably eat for a month. So yeah, that whole day to day — and then I started to think if it's all about food insecurity, then there needs to be an incentive that will bring these kids to school and help the parents.
[00:21:14] And it was then that this idea of food for school came up. So every day that a child came to school, they could earn a rice credit. While they're in the classrooms if they did well academically, they could earn vegetables and fruit and for grooming and for behavior, they could earn canned food, and that meant by Friday they'd go home with this big bag of groceries.
[00:21:38] It would've been the equivalent, if not better than what they had been able to earn if they'd worked on the dump site for a week. A hundred percent school attendance immediately. There you go. Like that, that was it. It was perfect. In fact, if it wasn't for that program, I don't think I'd be here today.
[00:21:55] 'Cause it was most definitely the thing that not only got the kids hooked into education, but the parents as well. 'Cause then they came and said, what does my child need to do to get extra food? So we were like, great, let's bring in homework. And it all just snowballed and the academic achievements of the children were just so surprising.
[00:22:14] 'Cause these were malnourished children from birth, they definitely had a hard time learning. We made the classes no more than 25. And we taught them in an interactive way, but they embraced it completely. And then as time went on, we would see kids would drop days, sometimes wouldn't turn up.
[00:22:32] So we'd try and find out what was wrong, and then we'd find out that mom and dad was sick or somebody wasn't well, and they needed to have medicines. And that's when I was able to employ a nurse and then get some volunteer doctors. And then we had a whole clinic.
[00:22:49] And it's just always been step by step — children weren't putting on weight, so I took them to a pediatrician. He told me they were riddled with intestinal worms — I, it didn't dawn on me that was even a thing. So then we started to deworm children, and it carried on doing that.
[00:23:05] We still do that to this day, but the egg count is very low now. Whereas before they were really riddled with them, so they start to gain weight and they grow. It has been just a series of — whatever roadblock you hit, just not taking that as a reason to stop, but just taking that as a reason to find another reason to keep them in school.
[00:23:29] And it's been like that right up until they graduate from university. In fact, as they've got older, it's got harder because there's so much more pressure on the older students to stop going to school or stop going to university so they can help their parents. So we've had to put more interventions in as they've got older to make sure that they really do complete their education, to incentivize the families to want to keep them in their education so they can complete their degrees so they can go out there and get jobs.
[00:24:11] Yeah. All of this — we're so shielded. You can't work in McDonald's if you don't have a degree. Yeah. That to me is staggering. So it's insane. It's — if that's the baseline, then millions of poor people don't have the ability to get educated and then even work in McDonald's — so there's no work.
[00:24:27] Yeah. And then they have to find — obviously there's crime, there's the sex trade, which is obviously awful. Both of those things. So the most noble thing for these families to do was to move on to a dump site and to work. And for their children to want to support them — to me is the most humbling thing.
[00:24:52] And it just goes to show the character of the Filipino. Because yeah, when I was — I've been there probably 10, 15 times. One of the first things you'll notice about the people is their amazing demeanour. They're so happy. They're resilient. They bring, they're just joy, right?
[00:25:11] There's happiness. I learned there's happiness comes from happenings, and joy comes from somewhere else. And this is what I got from being in the Philippines and seeing these people. So if you can't get a job, if you don't have a degree, not even at McDonald's, these amazing human beings have to resort to eating anything they can.
[00:25:34] And one thing, which is — some people watching this might have heard of — is Pagpag, which is where they have to essentially eat the leftovers from fast food restaurants, from customers' plates. It's not even leftovers from food that hasn't been sold. It's actually from customers' plates.
[00:25:51] Yeah. We are still one of the very few communities left in Manila where that practice continues. And when people are literally eating trash because they really cannot afford to even buy food — they are incredibly impoverished, but their desire to excel is really quite phenomenal.
[00:26:15] And I think a lot of the parents in the early days didn't really believe that it was possible for their children to be a fireman or a policeman or a nurse. They didn't think that was gonna be the result of me starting education. So halfway through, I started to look for students in the community that had maybe just a year or two of university, but had to drop out due to financial pressure.
[00:26:44] And then I started this little program where — I think it was only like maybe about 60 or 70 older students that had just not been able to complete their university degree — and I sponsored them through so that they could finish their degree. Of course they came from the community.
[00:27:01] As soon as they finished their degree, they were able to get work. And they were really like the role models for our children because they could see that actually it is possible if you just wait long enough. And you've got things. So I think one of the best things I feel about our work is that we've changed that dynamic in the community because everybody really values education because they now know that it leads to employment.
[00:27:34] And it doesn't just lead to like low paid work. It leads to good paid work and the better quality degree you have, the higher income you get. So now of course most of our original child workers have already graduated and have got jobs and we've had some really amazing stories that have come from the students.
[00:27:54] So there was one lad called Alma. He was lovely. I can remember seeing him in the charcoal pits. He was looking for nails and he was always black from head to toe. And he was looking for these nails and it was the metal that was gonna be sold and recycled. And we got him into school and he's now a pharmacist. So he started when he graduated — he's a pharmacist with Watson's.
[00:28:15] Watson's are in the Philippines and then he went for a job in Tondo Medical and he's a pharmacist there and he's been promoted twice and I'm pretty sure in another couple of years he's gonna tell me that he's head of the pharmacy. Because yeah, just amazing determination — that drive that they had.
[00:28:33] Once they realized that we will always do what we say. If we promise that you're gonna get breakfast and lunch, you'll get it. If we promise that you can earn food rewards for your achievements in school, you'll get that. If we promise that we'll give you your bus fare and your lunch when they went on to high school and senior high school — as long as they felt confident, after say like a decade, that we were always gonna be there, they just poured their heart and soul into their education, even though every year.
[00:29:07] They would be flooded with the typhoons — 25 typhoons in the Philippines. Fires would occur because everybody cooks with a charcoal stove. They don't have a safe electrical connection, so they might just be getting light from a candle. All the houses made from secondhand pieces of wood. So it was all very dangerous. And they went through so much — not being able to have a laptop or charge a phone. All these things worked against them, not being able to eat well, all of that. And still coming out with like first class degrees. I'm just in absolute awe of them.
[00:29:44] I don't know how they have achieved it, but we have had hundreds and hundreds of students now that have come out with these really good degrees, and some of them are working in international organisations. In fact we have a list of corporates in the Philippines that want our students, because they say that they are always punctual.
[00:30:10] They're so driven. They're not clock watchers. They're always polite. They're very conscientious. So that's something. And yet these were students or children that people used to look at and just disregard — so they've really shone and showed the world that there was much more to them than the grime and dirt that they were covered in.
[00:30:32] I'm super proud of them. What an amazing testament to the human spirit — of these amazing children, but also your spirit and your team's spirit. Because to do that, to provide that framework for these children so that they can flourish, is just incredible.
[00:30:53] And one thing I want to touch on is — it's just mind blowing to me that the support is holistic from as young as what? Three, four? Families really? From babies? Yeah. All the way through until they're 18. 18 years of support and education and food and healthcare for these children and their families.
[00:31:13] Yeah. So that they can go to school, get educated, and then chase their dreams of whatever they want to be. Yeah. And be able to do that and succeed and know you've got an amazing success rate. Yeah. A hundred percent of students go on to university. Yeah, a hundred percent. And a hundred percent of your students go to university. Yeah, that is — yeah, it is.
[00:31:33] And for the last six or seven years, a hundred percent have graduated as well. And even if for some reason they need to stop — they're never out of our program. It's just paused. And then for whatever reason — like we've had some students that had to drop out of university 'cause they caught tuberculosis — so it just goes on a pause for them. And then when they're well enough, they go back and they complete.
[00:32:05] But I think the thing that I hadn't anticipated was — it's not enough to help just the child. You have to help the whole family because the whole family is suffering and they're all in various states of chronic poverty and anything can happen. Their whole circumstances can change overnight. So we have a team of social workers and they do an at-risk register of all of our students.
[00:32:26] And they have to renew that maybe twice a year. So it means that they'll do house to house visits, they'll sit down with the parents and they'll assess what's going on. And on our last risk assessment, we discovered that 28% of our students had parents with chronic illness and the parents were choosing food over medicines.
[00:32:52] And even though we had a clinic that they could have come to, they didn't ask or tell us that they were in that situation. And it's very Filipino — it was the sense of "you already do so much for us, and we are shy to ask," which is why we do the at-risk registers to find out what situation they're in that could potentially mean that they would drop out of university or school.
[00:33:13] And of course, finding this 28% of students dealing with chronic illness from their parents was definitely putting so much pressure on them. They felt so guilty, because they were the oldest in the family, so they thought they could get a job in the port. They wouldn't earn hardly any money, but it could be casual work and that would help a little bit.
[00:33:35] So immediately when we found that out, we went straight back to all of our donors and told them about the problems and we got some extra money in our health clinic and now we're providing maintenance meds for all those students.
[00:33:57] And then there was another 72% of them who were really just surviving off the Pagpag. They really weren't buying any food. They were really in a bad condition. And during post pandemic has really been tough because they took a lot of loans from illegal money lenders during that time just so they could eat.
[00:34:16] And now of course those loans need to be paid back and that's why they're not buying food. So when we learned that, we then fundraised again for what I call a COLA allowance — a cost of living allowance — and it's awarded to the family so that they can use it for wherever the need is, if they need to use it to pay an electric bill, or buy water or pay for their rent or buy food.
[00:34:45] But they've got that. And that's meant that we got to the end of this school year and a hundred percent of them graduated. So we were relieved. And it's mind blowing to me that a hundred percent of these children you support — they go and graduate — and are able to be empowered to pull and lift their entire family out of poverty, because it's giving them the tools that they need to do that.
[00:35:12] Yeah. But they do more than that really. Because I thought wrongly that once they graduated, they would move somewhere a bit more sanitary. But they don't. The students opt to stay in the community for longer because they wanna put their siblings through education. And their thinking — which is much better than mine — is that if they get all of their siblings through, then they can pool all of their money together.
[00:35:42] And with that then they can either buy land, buy a house. But it's not enough for one student because one student won't be able to sustain the needs of the entire family. And if the siblings don't have their education, they're invariably gonna get married or they'll have children of their own and then that one student won't be able to do it.
[00:36:02] So they'll all stay in poverty, but maybe with a few extra luxuries. So by the student then saying I'm gonna put all of you through school — that then ensures that the generational poverty is really broken. So I now fully support that. And now when we are looking at families and students, we now put two students in — or three students in — from every family so that it makes it faster for them and that all that burden isn't on one student.
[00:36:38] But they're just so selfless. The family unit is everything to Filipinos. And it's so refreshing to somebody like me that didn't come from a family that really cherished their children — to actually be exposed to the way that they love their families and they put their families first. It's really refreshing. There's a lot to be learned.
[00:36:54] Yeah, definitely regardless of where they live or what's going on in their lives. A lot to be learned. Yeah. And I've definitely felt that every time I've been to the Philippines. I remember when we were actually at Smokey Mountain — we went to visit your amazing school. And as we were walking out, we were finished for the day and going home and there's this guy — a dump truck had arrived and there was this group of men ripping the bags open ferociously going for it, all sorts of stuff flying out of these rubbish bags — and this man was singing a song in Tagalog.
[00:37:31] And I was like — to my team member — I said, what's he saying? And they said, it's a good life. And he was singing a song about it's a good life. And he was happy — this man was vibrating with joy. And I was like, wow. There's so much that we can learn. A profound moment.
[00:37:54] Who on the outside had nothing, but he had everything and he was happy. Yeah. And I was like, wow. Yeah. So testament to the amazing Filipino spirit. Yeah. I think they've learned to live in the moment and it's something that we in the west are trying to achieve. But some people will just stay living in the past or always be — oh, in the future when I get something.
[00:38:21] But I've noticed for Filipino families that they enjoy the moment that they live in and they make the most of that moment. And it doesn't matter really if they're poor or not, because they find the joy in the moment while they're together. And it is mind blowing. I always come back from the Philippines a lot happier than I was before I left.
[00:38:47] Because you can't help but just feel positive and uplifted. And even if sometimes it becomes a bit overwhelming for me, especially in times of fire when there's so much need, and visibly I'll be worried — my team, who are incredible Filipinos, will just look at me and just say, we'll be alright man.
[00:39:08] We'll get through this. Yeah. We always get through this, don't worry. We'll work it out together. And some of them may have lost their own homes in that fire when they say that to me. So it's very inspiring people. That's very recent for you — I know you've just come back from the Philippines. Can you tell us what's happening right now, over the past few months?
[00:39:26] I think with the fires in these areas — we're in six different geographical areas, but with the one area that we're in, Tondo, we've had five big fires in the last two years, which is really unusual. Like all the years I've been there, you may only ever get a small fire maybe once a year. But to get five, and they're big.
[00:39:44] We had one in August — that was four and a half thousand people who lost their homes. And then September 13th it was eleven and a half thousand families who were displaced. Myself and my team, we were in our building. It was on fire. And our students, just with no regard for their own safety, just walked straight into the building and were trying to put the fire out. And that was all that we did, all of us together until about three-thirty in the morning.
[00:40:21] And part of our building burnt — our big livelihood workshop. 'Cause we make these amazing products out of ring pulls from canned drinks, and that gives the parents work. All of that burnt down along with half our roof. And the community themselves — the fire was ferocious. It literally started around eight-thirty. It was still burning when I left at five in the morning.
[00:40:39] It was still burning. And I went back again at eight o'clock the next morning on the Sunday. And even in our own building the fires were still burning. So it was really awful. And the community were obviously in a dreadful state of shock. You've lost your whole life and everybody — masses of people have lost it as well.
[00:40:58] And I remember going into our building — I walked around the community for a good three hours just talking to families and just holding them. Some of them were just crying. Just sharing care. Nobody was asking for help at that point. It was just, oh, this has happened again. And I went into our building just to have a look at the damage.
[00:41:14] And as I went in, some of the fathers followed me in and they said to me, Ma'am, can we volunteer? And I said, no. I said, you need to fix your own house. You just lost your home — at least stake out the land so you don't lose your land. And they said no. And he said, the community needs you, so we should fix your building first.
[00:41:50] And it brought me to tears. Yeah. It was just so powerful that their thought was not of themselves or their family, but their thought was for their community. And they recognized that we were there for them. So if they could help get us up and running, then they knew that we would be able to provide more help for them.
[00:42:10] And that was just incredibly humbling. That community was first in their mind. So it's why we all work round the clock. And it's why we ask so many people to help us, to partner with us — because these people are so deserving and all we wanna do is just help them get back on their feet again.
[00:42:34] Right now it's really tough for them because there's so many of them. A lot of other people that would maybe normally have tried to help in a time of fire haven't because there are so many thousands of them. So we really feel the weight of it. Some of them have just got a tarpaulin that they're living under, and some children you can see walking around with just a piece of card over their head trying to shelter themselves from the sun.
[00:42:59] And even ourselves — everything we raise, we give away. So we've been saving cardboard because we knew when they got asked to leave the evacuation halls, they probably wouldn't have had enough money to buy cement, sand, and gravel. So we've been saving all the cardboard for them so we could give them a pile of cardboard — and that's what they would sleep on, while just until — we've just heard actually today that we've been given a donation of cement. So we're really excited to be able to get that for them.
[00:43:34] But it's slow. They've got to live through the typhoons and everything, through all of this. So the fires are really tough. And this is when students are tempted to drop outta school. Like we've got about 140 odd students that have been affected by this, but we're supporting them — we've given them clothes and school uniform and shoes and everything. But there may be other students in the community that we are not supporting and they would've lost their school uniform and their shoes. And the parents haven't got money to give them bus fare to get to school.
[00:44:09] They haven't got money to give them for their lunch. So they're gonna drop out — they'll drop outta school — and all that effort and sacrifice that their families have made to get them to that point has been for nothing. Because if they don't complete, they're not gonna get work.
[00:44:26] So we are really looking to find those students and at least be able to give them a school uniform so they can continue in school. 'Cause most of the schools will let them come in home clothes for maybe a month or so. But not much longer. So it's — and they go through this on a regular basis, but the last two years have been particularly bad.
[00:44:48] Yeah. And it's been absolutely horrendous for these people. Huge fires just decimating thousands of people's homes. Which was where they called home. To see that grace of people in that situation — just again as a testament to the Filipino spirit, the people, and the human spirit as well.
[00:45:07] And what I want to do is ask any of our viewers today — if you feel pulled to support in any way, there'll be a link in the description below where you can find Jane's great work. And we can start making a difference in these amazing people's lives. And it's much needed right now because these fires have ravaged through and it's needed more than ever because these folks have no home.
[00:00:16] And they have no food and their education — and the list goes on. I want to ask you a little bit around — because I know I had these same questions — the word charity I think has a bit of a bad wrap. Some people have questions about it.
[00:00:33] And what I wanted to understand — and what I was so impressed about you and your work — is how incredibly holistic it is. And effective. A hundred percent success rate over providing education for 18 years and support and food and all these amazing things — 18 years. That's what it takes, right? And a lot of people don't realize that. And this is what my interpretation was of some of these bigger organisations, these charities. I'm not saying all large charities don't do good. But what I didn't really get from that was the holistic support that people need — being grassroots, where you're there with the community, with these people. Can you talk a little bit around that?
[00:01:27] Yeah. I think the holistic approach works very well when you're dealing with severe poverty. And when you're dealing with people that don't have enough money for food, they're not living in a safe structure, they're squatters, all of that. So that holistic approach is really vital because every aspect of poverty is affecting their lives. And if you can't address one side of it, then everything else will come tumbling down.
[00:02:07] And in terms of — a lot of the international or the larger charities will actually employ or give funds to charities like ourselves to do and run projects for them. So I don't think everybody would be aware of that. It's not actually the big charities running it. But they are looking for grassroots charities like us to run projects for them.
[00:02:32] So that, that's one aspect of it. And of course that's the middleman, so of course there's always gonna be less if somebody's making a donation to a grassroots charity — then you can be fairly confident that all of that money is being spent where it needs to be spent because there aren't any tiers around it.
[00:02:53] And also, I think when you're funding charities that are run and managed especially by founders — most founders have had to go through an enormous amount of personal sacrifice in order to get where they are today. So the concept of frittering away money isn't something that's there.
[00:03:12] However, I do know that there are times when that is abused. So it's always good to look at the Charity Commission because accounts have to be posted on Charity Commission and you can look and you can see how much money is spent on salaries in relation to projects. And it can be a good idea.
[00:03:30] But I always think if you are ever planning on investing into a charity, then try and see it. Or at least try and have a dialogue with somebody there. So you get a sense of what is being given. And that's really important because all of us work really hard for our money and we don't wanna be giving it to a charity that isn't making sure that all of that money is getting funnelled into the right place.
[00:03:49] Obviously we have staff which we have to pay in the Philippines. We're very lean in the UK — we just have one full-time member of staff and one part-time. Because we find that we can employ people in the Philippines to do a lot of the work that we could do here. But we also have 86 community volunteers and those are people that come from the community.
[00:04:19] We are allowed by Philippine law to pay them a small stipend. But they come in and they volunteer with us. And because they do that, it means that there is more money that we're able to give to the community. And the community volunteers know that. And in fact this particular fire — I think 20 of our community volunteers lost their homes — and one of our priorities is that we will rebuild their homes for them because they have sacrificed so much for their communities.
[00:04:56] But I think that's always a good sign of a charity — that you've got high community engagement, because you know that shows the value of a charity. And also no — it's a testament, just the men wanting to help rebuild. Yeah, that was — that says everything. Yeah, that was really heartbreaking to hear them say.
[00:05:14] But very touching. Just that alone says everything — it says a lot about the work you've done and the impact you've made and the wonderful spirit of the Filipino people. And I just wanna, again, thank you for your incredible work and all of it has inspired me.
[00:05:31] And countless others to think how we ourselves can give forward in a way which makes meaningful change and actually does change. And this is what I was so impressed around — everything that you do, a hundred percent success rate on the children, is just mind blowing to me. But also the love that the community has for you speaks volumes.
[00:05:50] Jane, I just wanna say thank you again. Thank you for spending time and talking us through all of your great work. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you.