Singaporean PR works as trishaw rider to learn what being poor is really like

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http://www.todayonline.com/People/EDC121124-0000007/A-week-in-the-slums

Mr Ian Bland, a Singaporean Permanent Resident and freelance charity worker, thought he knew what life was like for Filipino families living barely above the poverty line, having visited them several times. But a week spent living among them earlier this month, working as a trisikad rider with his host family living off his daily earnings, showed just how little he knew.

"It's incredibly more difficult than I could imagine from the outside looking in," the 43-year-old said.

Home was in a cramped shanty community of about 1,000 households in Tabunok, in Cebu's Talisay City. The bathroom was a shared open area behind the house. Open drains crisscrossing the community would sometimes overflow.

A wooden table served as his bed - already a luxury compared to the rest of the family who slept on the floor. His host, Gian Labitad, 18, lived with his father, stepmother, two brothers and a younger sister.

As a trisikad rider, Mr Bland earned a grand total of S$24 during the week - between 55 pesos (S$1.65) and 170 pesos a day - and began watching every cent he spent.

"If you want to buy water, it's just one peso but you literally have to count every penny because you've got other people relying on you for that income," he said.

The average rider earns about 150 pesos a day, just enough to feed a family of six. With little to save, most people buy single servings of fuel, salt and seasoning to cover their meals one day at a time. If the breadwinner falls ill, it often means no income for the day, and no money to buy medication.

Mr Bland's host, Gian, is the recipient of a scholarship from Singapore charity AkarakA, which partners a Filipino non-governmental organisation to identify needy youth and sponsor their tertiary studies.

If not for the scholarship of S$750 a year for four years, which lets him pursue a degree in secondary education, he would have had to stop school to work as a manual labourer or trisikad rider to support his family. "Not only would it be a waste of his potential, it also means his kids go through the same," said Mr Bland.

Mr Bland had cycled to get fit before going to the Philippines, but found that training on a mountain bike in Singapore was nothing like pedalling on a small BMX bicycle with up to four passengers in the attached carriage, which he had to rent for 50 pesos a day. "You pedal very fast to go very slow," he said.

He wanted to give up a couple of times but pushed on. "All these people were seeing a white guy doing it, and I wanted to show them I could. That kept me going."

He ate what his host family ate. With the basic diet of rice not enough to replenish the calories he burnt, Mr Bland said things did not get better after the first day; his legs tired sooner. But support from the locals grew after they got used to seeing him on the streets.

The experience has reinforced his commitment to those who need a leg-up in life.

"You realise how tough life is. Just through accident of birth, I'm born in the United Kingdom and I can travel and have social welfare, free medical and free education. Kids born into these environments, it's so difficult for them and it's a repetitive cycle unless there's intervention," he said.