In 2016 we built homes for the most vulnerable children living in the city landfill of Cagayan De Oro's (CDO) in the Philippines.
The children are largely from the waste picker community located on and around the 17 hectare garbage dumping site of CDO. In this depressed area, approximately 1,900 socially deprived people are living in about 350 families. They survive from waste picking with incomes far below the poverty line.
They are working under extremely unhealthy and dangerous conditions and without any social securities. The children who work on the landfill often have no access to education or drop out from school due to truancy or early marriage.
The project consists of a housing unit for roughly 30 children that are raised in small family like units rather than an orphanage with a matron that looks after them. The homes have been built as the strongest in the area and have been agreed with the government to be used as shelters in the case of hurricanes and typhoons.
