Justin's Adventures

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Hi,

Wanna stay in touch with me? Please register for free at FACEBOOK.

Thanks - see you there!!!

Posted on Saturday, 31 March 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Philippines Playground Project

In February 2006 , the Philippines suffered one of its most tragic natural disasters when the village of Guinsaugon, Southern Leyte Province was engulfed by a devastating landslide. Some 1000 people were killed. 279 children who happened to be in a school nearby were made orphans. Hundreds of evacuated families are still homeless.

I’m planning a project to help the children left behind who are currently living in tiny huts with walls and roofs made out of blue plastic. The children play games with elastic bands on dusty streets and in muddy puddles.

A new village is being built to house the homeless and the orphans. Foreign aid has funded the building of houses, a school, health centre and other essentials. Everything they need is there, except somewhere to play.

Our project involves building a playground. In agreement with the Provincial Government of of Southern Leyte, a central plot of land in the new village has been put aside for the construction of a children's adventure playground with landscaping and gardens and a place for the grown-ups to sit and watch their children play.

This playground would unashamedly be a luxury. Everything else that these poor children have been provided with is essential and the aid will not extend further. The hope is that this playground will become a social centre of the village and will also serve as a village based memorial to those who died.

To make it happen though, I need you help.

I need a team of enthusiastic people to help raise funds to finance the project, to pay for the building materials and a designer, and to pay for the costs involved in getting a dedicated team out to the site..

I also need a small team of volunteers to come to the Philippines in August 2007. The Playground Project will fund you to spend two weeks constructing the playground from scratch to the last lick of paint and the last tree.

It will be a tough time in hot, sweaty conditions – working all day and sleeping in makeshift accommodation. At the end though, we will unveil the playground to the hundreds of children who so desperately need somewhere to play and socialise – and you know that every huge Filipino smile and giggle will bring a tear to your eye.

A quick reminder:

Almost 1000 people including all the children at the elementary school died on 17th February 2006.

279 Children were made orphans.

800 Families are homeless following the disaster.

About 40% of Filipinos, or more than 30 million people, live in abject poverty. Most of those are in rural areas like Guinsaugon.

For more information about the project, please register on Facebook by clicking HERE.

Thanks.

You can read more about the tragedy here.

Posted on Sunday, 04 February 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Facebook

I've joined a networking site called Facebook mainly to help communicate my Philippines Playground Project .

Now you'll know that I'm not great at keeping this blog up to date, but to be fair, only about five people actually read this so it's not that economical as a form of broadcast communication.

So there's a good chance that I'll start using Facebook more and more. So follow the links, register and then track me down by email address or whatever. You need to 'add' me as a friend.

Thanks!!

Posted on Sunday, 04 February 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

In Singapore

Hi Everybody! Whoever you may be!

I'm in Singapore!

Of course there's no way I can tell you what I'm doing here but I can tell you that I'm spending a great deal of time watching '24' which I have come across for the first time. You'll be releaved to know that Jack has been freed by the Russian geezers but he still needs to find Kim (and I can't blame him!) and only has a couple of hours to do it!

Anyway...

I was in Jakarta last week. Very similar to Manila I think, except just a little more cash knocking around. But not much. And most of the people I met seemed to ask (themselves), 'what IS wrong with Indonesia?" Personally I couldn't see what was wrong, or correct about it, but it's hard to tell either way after just a few days.

I do know that Jakarta is suffering from some nasty floods at the moment and some people have died, and a nastier case of Dengue Fever.

Anyway, Singapore is completely different with as much of an ethnic mix and London. Difference in Singapore seems to be that fee speech isn't so free and monitoring of individuals is pretty standard practice. (Hello to all you Internet Surveillance folks tapping in!)

It does have it's cool places and hidden gems known only to the locals. Fortunately I have Victor and Debby to show me the sights.

Chinese New Year is fast approaching and seems to fuel and increased trade in little brightly coloured plastic things all aver the place. The streets are heaving as people make their way home with bags full of sweets and plastic flowers. Yum!