Notes from the Field: China and Philippines

Julian Liu, Program Officer for Asia meets with EMpower grantee partners to discuss progress and challenges.

In February I visited ZOTO, located in Tondo, one of the largest slums in Asia, in the middle of metropolitan Manila. For thirty years, ZOTO has been defending the rights of the most vulnerable of Manila's residents - migrants from other provinces who have come to Manila to improve their lives but find themselves living in precarious conditions in the informal settlements that dot the Manila landscape. Often they must made do with less than ideal circumstances, some even end up constructing makeshift homes under bridges and highway overpasses. In the 70s and 80s, under the Marcos regime, a wave of ''urban renewal'' displaced many of these communities, supposedly into upgraded housing, but usually in quite distant locations, far from jobs or needed social services. ZOTO works with these displaced residents to rebuild the fabric of their communities and in recent years has come to focus on the second and third generation children of migrants, who are now coming of age in the challenging urban environment of metro Manila. Through cultural performance, vocational training, and now entrepreneurship, ZOTO has been providing youth who would otherwise have few options, with the opportunity to develop their skills , build their confidence, and develop as independent adults. While visiting ZOTO, I met with several of the young entrepreneurs that ZOTO, with EMpower's support, have trained to start their own micro enterprises, ranging from serving prepared foods to running a small neighborhood shop to selling self-designed clothing and accessories. The work of developing one's own viable business is not easy; only 5 of 8 businesses are making profit; but nevertheless the youth remain enthusiastic about moving their enterprises toward profitability.

After the Philippines, I went to China, a country in very different economic situation from the Philippines, but nevertheless facing some of the same issues as large numbers of rural peasants quit agricultural activities for industrial and service sector employment in urban areas. Until this past year, this stream of rural-to-urban migration had proceeded uninterrupted for many years as export-led industrial production drew millions from the countryside into urban factories. However the financial crisis left huge numbers of migrants in a difficult situation, with estimated 20 million having lost their jobs over the past year. Although there is much discussion in the media about migrant workers returning to their home towns and to agricultural work, in reality, this is not a viable resolution to the unemployment problem, as many have already signed away their rights to their land to their neighbors who stayed behind, or have seen their land taken over by urbanization and property development. Thus migrant can no longer be considered ‘’guests’’ in the city, they have become an integral part of the fabric of urban society in China. The Dandelion School is one of EMpower’s grantees that has recognized this; it has developed a curriculum that goes beyond the traditional exam preparation typical of most Chinese schools. Its ''character education'' program, tailored to children of rural background adapting to urban society, emphasizes the full development of the young person: decision-making, creativity, and self-confidence. Migrants are often stigmatized as outsiders to the city, who presence is required only for their labour. However the Dandelion School has managed to instill a sense of identity and self-confidence among migrant children, through interactive teaching modules such as a creative art exercise in which students are asked to draw life maps of their life, tracing their families' journey from different provinces throughout China and finally to Beijing. Through this process, they learn to reevaluate and take pride in they and their families’ journey and that while they are from elsewhere, they too have a place, like everyone else, in the city.