A SPECIAL TROOP
A SPECIAL TROOP
Fr John Leydon writes about a Scout Troop drawn from sons and daughters of the street families of Our Lady of Remedies Parish, Manila, Philippines.
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I belong to Malate parish, Our Lady of Remedies, in Manila. The majority of our parishioners are urban poor. In a scene like this you soon realise that there are many degrees of poverty and that the bottom rung is those who are homeless.
There are no street children here as such; we have street families. These are usually families who have fallen through the net and there is usually a degree of disfunctionality in either one or both of the parents, due to drugs or some other factor. However, I personally have no idea how these families survive on the street. I feel that I’d last no time at all in a situation like theirs. I am in total admiration of them.
We have a program for the settled areas, which are poor. We also have a program for the street families. The street families have a degree of stability, but you can imagine what it might be like not having a house, living on the street.
A lot of the kids from the street families drop out of school so we have a class room program for them to help them get back into school. That’s a daily program from Monday to Friday; there’s a feeding program for them as well, so at least they’ll get one decent meal a day.
A few years ago the scouts approached to see if we would be interested in setting up a troop for the children of the street families. It seemed like a good idea to us, especially Fr Enrique Escobar (a diocesan priest from Peru who worked with us in Manila for six years), who was very close to the poor and had a scout background himself. We were also very impressed with the scout’s person in charge, Sophie, a dynamic woman with intense commitment to the children who have joined our local troop.
Twenty four children joined the first year, seven of whom were totally wild and unmanageable and were intent on wrecking the program, so were asked to leave. At that initial stage they might have killed the project before it got off the ground.
At first it was so difficult to get the children to come to the meetings and the teachers involved had to go and almost drag the children to the regular meetings of the troop. But, after a while the youngsters began to turn up on time waiting for it to happen. It responded to some needs they had, maybe something along the lines of structure, mentoring and opportunity for growth.
The following year the seven who had been put out during the early days of the troop’s formation were outside with their noses to the window clamouring to join again. When the troop consolidated they were able to take them in again. There was now no possibility of them wrecking anything and they had also seen the benefits for their companions and wanted to share in that as well. They knew that joining demanded they pay a price but they were persuaded that it would be worth it.
Sophie and her husband are full time workers with the scouting movement; they are most impressive people. They have two children and I noticed that when they took the scouts off on a camp they took their children along too. Normally middle-class parents, who are involved with the poor, and especially with street children, would be very protective of their own children and would keep them apart from the poorer children with whom they are working. Sophie’s children simply joined in the scouting business with the rest of the troop. The children of the street families also mix with the other children of the parish but there is a gap, even though all of them are poor.
The children in the Malate parish troop are part of a scouting movement program called, Ticket to Life Scouts (TTL), which is a project for Children in Especially Difficult Circumstances (CEDEC) aged six to sixteen years. The program is designed to help the children develop a plan for their lives by schooling them in responsibility and, in general, fostering their personal development through the scouting movement. More than 5,000 children within the Asia-Pacific Region belong to TTL in eight pilot countries – Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines.
Our scout troop went to a Jamboree in December 2009 where 13,000 scouts from the Asia Pacific Region gathered for their 26th Jamboree. It was a great experience for them to be able to mix with boys and girls from many countries, especially street children from other countries, and feel that they belonged.
 Sophie with her husband Derek |
Sophie is totally committed to scouting. She is very vivacious, but what comes across is her love for the kids; it’s palpable, so to speak. She knows each child intimately. She has to deal with their families but at times has trouble convincing them of the worth of the scouting programme for them and their children. The family depend on the children for income, so they are always asking (themselves at least) how the scouting movement might enhance family income – begging or watching cars or some other small chore for which they might earn a tip. |
On one occasion recently I attended a feedback session with the parents, many of whom were over the moon about the way their children had matured in a way they thought would never happen. I found what many parents had to say to be so inspiring; they helped me see that this programme is having an impact on their lives; it goes beyond just meeting a basic need without any human development. This programme has a promise of real change; you see it reaching children who are both quite vulnerable and also open to learning. What the troop is doing with them is, in some way, helping them to push and dream beyond the directionless and poverty-stricken routine of street life.
John Leydon has worked in the Philippines since 1973.
[Far East Magazine]