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Summary: Account of the everyday experiences of a
PREDA volunteer working in the jail rescue
team.Hope and help for Philippine Children in conflict with the law
By: Mathias Klasen - PREDA Volunteer
A great, but difficult challenge for me. After my time at Preda as a
volunteer, I want to try to give a report about what happened. An attempt
to report on my everyday life and every day work in the jail rescue team,
one of the many departments at Preda. The Fair Trade team, the Peps
team, the Rain team and all the other Departments contribute other work
of the same importance to the mission of Preda. Other volunteers will work
in different departments and will gain other experiences, but after all every
one of us is trying to make this world a better place, a just and peaceful
place, and this is what it is all about.
Now, how shall I report on this? I will tell about the children I have worked
with. About the duties and responsibilities of us volunteers, but also about
our chances and possibilities here at Preda. Volunteers like me, who come
here from all over the world, to spend a part of their lifetime together with
these children here at the Preda Foundation.
The children who I am talking about, are boys at the age between 9 and
17 years old. Children in conflict with the law. Children, who were rescued
by Preda from the jail. The alternative home for these boys, which is run by
the Preda foundation since December 2003, provides them with a new
home and a therapeutic opportunity. A team of social workers, teachers,
pedagogues and psychologists care for these children 24 hours. Step by
step they learn how to deal with the painfully and shocking experiences
which they have gone through. A new way of life opens for the children.
For many it is the first time in their life, that they are being loved and
looked after, that they have the feeling of being important.
We, as volunteers at Preda, have the unique opportunity to accompany
these children for a short while on this very new way of life. To contribute
to the process that will change their life fundamentally. Each and every one
of us brings in his knowledge and his abilities to create the everyday life of
the children as varied and instructive as possible. We bring in ideas and
create activities on our own, always accompanied by highly competent staff
members. Creativity is being raised by conducting activities as theater and
other playful impulses. They gain the ability to work successfully in a team
by playing games as basketball. In mixed teams, the children learn to take
care of each other. Older boys are being supported in their efforts to train
younger teammates.
They learn from each other and to listen to each other. Teachers, with the
help of volunteers, provide non formal education for these children,
adjusted to their educational background. This is not always easy, as many
of these children have never been to school, or dropped out of school
early. They had to learn from the very beginning how to support their
families.Almost starving, many of them chose to steal in order to buy food,
as they could see no other way out. Others started to drug themselves, so
they would not feel the hunger or the sorrow anymore. Most of these kids
were thrown in prison because of these cases. Together with Joan and
Michael, two staff members of the jail rescue team, I visited several jails in
Metro Manila and I can very well remember the day I first visited one of
them.
The Jail Visit.
We were a small group. Joan and Michael, two Swedish volunteers and I.
We had a court order with us, stating that two of the children of this jail
were to be transferred to the Preda center. One of these two children was
nine years old, the other one ten. This very fact was hard to imagine for
myself. At this age? At a place like that? How can people be so cruel and
put children in these jails, to make them live that life? As we were about to
enter, I could already imagine how it would look like. We were standing on
this dusty street, the common noise of the jeepneys around us. A thick iron
door with a small lattice-window opened, and we were allowed to get in. It
was a sunny day. In the courtyard there were a few inmates, cleaning the
motorbikes of the guards. They are called trusties, inmates who are loyal
to the warden and the guards and therefore gain certain privileges. We
talked to the guards about the procedure, unfortunately cameras were not
allowed.
Unbelievable sights, smells,and suffering.
The two Swedish volunteers and I wanted to go directly to the children, we
wanted to see, what we have read about so much. There was a small door
on the left side of the courtyard, which leads to the detention facilities. We
walked down a corridor about two meters wide. On the left and right side
there are the cells. It was unbearable humid inside the building and I
almost vomited because of the smell. I could not stand this for long I
thought. Steam was rising from the ground, and it smelled like a mixture of
sweat, urine and mould. After a few seconds my shirt was wet, sticking to
my body. Hundreds of hands reached out to touch me, as we were walking
down the aisle. As we reached the minors, I saw a scene which I will never
forget in my life. More than 60 children were caged like animals, in a cell
which was not even 25 square meters big. The ground was covered with
them, they were crouching on tiny little spaces. Wherever I looked, I could
see pleading faces and hands.
The legs of the children were covered with blisters and wounds and
mosquito bites, which they scratched open. The two children who were to
come with us, stood right behind the bars. Armando and Gerry. They were
really weak and could hardly stand. An agitated look, a helpless look, a
look from which one could tell that they were scared for life. Being only
nine and ten years old, they were in jail because they stole some items
which were not even worth 50 Euros. At a place like that, where they
should not be even for a second, they had to live for over a month. How
shall the wounded souls ever be healed I ask myself? I still do not
understand, how incredible brutal these children are punished here.
Standing there, helpless in front of the cell made me feel really bad. I saw
this whole miserable situation and could do nothing, not one thing. I felt
feelings of anger, as well as endless sorrow and pity.
The children in jail are being tortured and abused by policemen as well as
adult criminals. Having neither enough food, nor any medical care, they live
an inhuman life in prison. In lack of mattresses they have to sleep on the
hard concrete floor, which is often wet with urine. There is no running
water and the toilet is just a hole in the floor. Both the quality and quantity
of food are insufficient. The standard allowance for food is about 30 pesos
(around 50 cents) per inmate. This means for the children that they have
to fight over the food with the adult inmates.
The children are Traumatized and agitated, like Armando and Gerry, they
are being rescued from this living hell by Preda staff members,
accompanied by volunteers like me. To achieve this, lots of preparatory
work has to be done. Discussions are being held with court social workers,
jails are visited regularly and the minors in these jails are being
interviewed. How many minors are in jail? How are they treated? How old
are they and do they get enough food? Step by step these interviews
bring us further. We are than able to write reports, which we can present
to the judges at court. Many of the children in jail have had no court
hearing yet, they do not know what is going to happen to them. The Jail
Rescue Team of Preda helps them to find a way out of there and to make
their life more bearable.
Helpless to change the situation. I remember the feeling of being helpless,
standing in front of the children with nothing to offer, no help to give. We
decided later to buy ceiling fans, in order to donate them to the jail. They
had to assure us that the fans would only be used by the children. I look
at it as something that will make their life a little more comfortable.
However, this is only the beginning, just a little step forward. There is a
long way ahead of us and the help and work of many more volunteers is
needed in order to prevent these children from a life like that.
In the way we care about the children in conflict with the law, we care
about the children who are living on the streets of Olongapo and other
towns in the Philippines. During my time here, I have visited them many
times at the places where they live. Under the bridges, where the street
children are vegetating in filth and dirt, the ground covered with garbage.
There is a big misery, and it is frightening how unconcerned society looks
after them.
Without a family, they are living as outcasts a life in extreme poverty. They
have no real clothes, no shoes, no clean water. They use a drainage,
which is next to their ³sleeping place² to wash themselves. Many of them
suffer from various skin diseases, hepatitis, malaria, etc. We plan and
conduct activities for them. On outings with the children from the Preda
center, like a day at the beach, they learn how to socialize. Activities like
that give them a chance to escape from their sad everyday reality. We
somehow provide a family for them, while Preda staff members try to
reintegrate them in their real families, if they have any left. Some of my
most beautiful memories are about the time I spend with these children.
On one of our weekly visits I saw how they had made little boats out of
coca cola cans and other garbage and that they were having a race with
them. The boats looked very fragile and the water was from the drainage
and really dirty. However, in their eyes there was a shining light. A light of
joy in a way only only children can have. Pure joy about the moment. For a
second, they blended out reality and were being simply this, what they
really are. Children.
Well, this is only a short insight of what happened to me and other
volunteers during our time at Preda. It turns out, that the days here vary
far to much from each other, as I could call them "everyday life³. Each day
brings new adventures and challenges which have to be faced. Every day
is different here, though all of them have something in common. Being a
volunteer at the Preda foundation, there was not a single day, from which
I could not say that he was one-of-a-kind for me. As I look back to my life
before Preda, I realize, that I have learned from these children here at
least as much as they have learned from me. For this experience I am more
than grateful. I thank these children, for each and every "everyday life"
day I was able to spend with them. [End]
PREDA Foundation, Inc.Owner: Mathias Klasen