My Hometown’s SOROPTIMIST Organization
I came across this story of a young girl through a cousin who is a member of Soroptimist in my town, “a global organization that works to improve the lives of women and girls through education, advocacy, and community projects.” The Soroptimist International has a project called Live Your Dream Award, which is “an educational grant for women who are the primary financial supporters for their families. It provides resources for tuition, books, and other expenses to help women improve their education, skills, and employment prospects. Applications are made at the local club level, with opportunities to advance to regional and international awards.” It is a story of a young girl narrated in Tagalog by the principal character. My cousin asked me to translate it into English. It is a moving story worth sharing with a bigger audience.
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I am Poverty — that is my family name. Struggle, my middle. Hope is my first. But Dream is the name I call myself since I can remember.
I am a young girl dreaming of getting a break in life, a girl who dreams big, a girl who hopes to reach the unreachable star, like in the song The Impossible Dream. Dreams begin at home. And for many young girls — and boys as well — whose families cannot provide a proper home, home is also where dreams end.
My family never had a proper home. I’ve never had a sweet one. I do not remember a time when our family stayed in one place. We kept moving from one place to another. The miserable gypsies, that’s what we are.
I was born to an impoverished family whose breadwinner, my father, works as a farmhand by day and a fisherman by night — a fisherman who hopes to catch the big fish with his crude hook, line, and sinker. Most of the time, he would come home with hardly a catch. My mother does odd jobs to augment whatever little money my father brings home to his destitute family. There were times when there was no job for them. I cannot recall how many times we went to sleep starving.
My hope is that by sharing my story, others will see the importance of supporting girls like me who dream of escaping poverty through education, and will be inspired to help make this possible.
My basic education took place in different schools and towns. By the time I was in grade school, my parents had moved to a city in Bulacan Province. I was left with my uncle, who was supposed to take care of me. This uncle had a son, much older than me, who sexually abused me. It scared the living daylights out of me. I was afraid to refuse and scarier to tell my parents.
I was an unhappy child, both at home and at school. At home, I had a sex pervert; at school, I had bullies for classmates. I would go home with bruises and torn clothes, which did not make my uncle’s family happy. Instead of getting comforting words, I would be reprimanded and get several spankings. I dwelled in self-pity. I longed for my own parents, who were supposed to give me a warm embrace and soothing words when I most needed them. They were not there; that was the problem. And even if they were around, they would have more pressing issues, like where to get the next meal for us kids. I was a seven-year-old child who was beginning to learn that poverty is a curse, that love cannot grow in an environment where every day is a struggle, looking for means to calm a growling stomach.
The constant bullying in school made my parents decide to bring me back into their fold and enroll me in a new school. Being poor, dirty, and malnourished, the bullying did not stop despite a different school. Why should it be the case, I asked myself many times, that a poor child gets ridiculed every time? It was not fair, my father would tell me; therefore, I must do well at school. Make up for the time I would be absent from school from time to time? I don’t need to enumerate the reasons.
Meanwhile, my family was getting bigger; a brother was born, a sister the next, and it never stopped. My parents thought it best to send me back to Hagonoy, our original town, back to where my miseries began. Children in my situation did not have the right to question any decision made by their elders. I learned how to persevere—suffer was the right word. Again, did I have a choice? I took comfort in the fact that this time, a younger brother was with me. We stayed at my uncle’s place until he fell ill and could no longer provide for us. I was in Grade six at the time, and my brother was in Grade five. Our parents were forced to take us back. Through their struggle and through the help of some relatives, I was able to get a high school education, which had to stop after Grade eleven when it became really impossible for my parents and benefactors to support me. It was at this time that a friend and I decided to find a job to help us finish high school.
I did not find a job, but found my first love — a soldier in the military. He convinced my parents that we should live together. It may not have been an easy decision for them, but it meant fewer mouths to feed. Sad as it may seem, they had to be practical. They, too, did not have a choice.
It was smooth sailing with my boyfriend, who would provide me with my daily school allowance, until I received a call from a woman who claimed to be his wife. I was broken-hearted, left him, and went back to my parents. With no money to support my education, my dream of finishing high school fizzled. It was then that my best friend asked me to go with her to find a job in Angeles City, at a place where angels would be up at 5 pm, sweetly painted, reeking of cheap perfume. It was there that I met an old man, your typical dirty old man, who promised the world to me. This gullible young girl hoped to get a better shot in life — to finish HS and get a good college education — one that can elevate me to the next level beyond poverty. My parents and my siblings were always on my mind as I chased my dream. One day it may happen.
That one day never came when I got sick and my sugar-daddy dropped me because he could no longer take care of me, he said. My parents took me back and sent me to quack doctors. Once I was fit to work again, I helped my aunt make rice cakes, which she would sell at the market. With whatever financial help my aunt could afford, I was back in school once more. She was, at the same time, supporting three of her own kids to get an education, so money was not enough, and I had to say goodbye to school for the nth time. I thought life was taking the right course for me when a cousin approached me about working as a house help at her home. I was more than happy to accept the job. It was working for her and her family that made me realize the true meaning of the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I worked from daybreak until past midnight, which often meant missing school. I can take the physical abuse, like getting hit on the head with a block of wood, we call “dos por dos” because I was slow and could not comprehend simple instructions, they would say, but the constant verbal abuse and insults they would throw my way at every opportunity they get were too much for me to handle. I became a nervous wreck. There was a time when they handed me a rope, telling me to hang myself. It was again when I fell ill and my cousin would not send me to a doctor that my parents decided to take me back.
Despite my father getting weak and grey, he made a bow to support my education. He kept his promise until I graduated from Grade 12.
I am now enrolled at Richwell Colleges, taking up a BS in Tourism, thanks to their study-now-pay-later plan. Working as a student assistant helps augment my daily allowance and get me to school. Occasionally, I get to work as a catering helper, but whatever I earn goes into the family purse, which has a big hole where whatever we put in gets lost easily.
I dream of becoming an architect. I have never abandoned this childhood dream. I know I can be a good one, perfect, in fact, but the lack of financial means to pursue a career in this field has to take a backseat. I thought I saw the light at the end of the tunnel when I heard about LIVE YOUR DREAM ORG. It appears to be only a thin light for now, because the tunnel is long and the journey will not be easy, but I know it will get brighter, so I must not be afraid of the dark. I have gone through many dark tunnels in my life where the light has been dimmer, but I never let it discourage me from continuing my journey, not once minding the detours, because I want to reach my destination.
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I am happy that LIVE YOUR DREAM ORG, a project of Soroptimist, is keeping that light of hope burning, especially for those who, like me, need it most to reach the end of the tunnel and find their destination. This light can help me get a good shot in life and fulfill my childhood dream, replacing the secret childhood names I called myself — Poverty, Hope, and Dream — with something that sounds like the culmination of all my struggles: Happiness. Happy to be emancipated from everything negative that stunts a child’s mental, emotional, and physical development. No child deserves to go hungry, no child deserves poverty. I am no longer the battered girl that I used to be. I am now a woman, a woman who does not stop chasing her dream. I had had enough of walking in the rubble and walking over shattered glass. LIVE YOUR DREAM ORG can help me catch my Dream that I may someday become a role model to the many children, women, as well as men, who, because of poverty, have abandoned all hopes for a better life. Help me live my dream so that I, in some small or big way, can help others live theirs.