By Frank Schuengel on April 28, 2015. When In Manila
“Paging the United Nations. There is a refugee crisis in Manila and the Philippines is totally in denial.” These are the first lines of a recent Facebook post by artist and cultural activist Carlos Celdran in which he describes a visit to Happy Land, Helping Land, and Aroma in Tondo. Besides writing about the hellish conditions in the worst parts of the nation’s capital, he also mentioned the organization that had arranged his visit to the area: Project PEARLS.
Shocked by what he described, we met up with the volunteers of Project PEARLS to learn more about the issues at hand and to help in raising awareness of the living conditions faced by thousands of people in the area. Follow us as we take you on a tour of a settlement that shouldn’t exist in the first place, shine a light on the amazing work done by volunteers trying to improve things, and share how you can make a direct difference to the lives of the people living there.
