Sunday, June 23, 2002                                                               Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

All it took to save a village was building a washroom
Halifax widow gives dignity to slum-dwellers in Philippines

By Penny Poole

Davao City, Philippines - Kim Harper-Given admits she sometimes feels like Noah might have when he was building the ark, and not because both their visions involved water.
 

The Halifax native often wonders if others could understand her approach to her chosen lifework to minister to poor Filipinos from within the very heart of their slum community.
 

Inspired by the work of Mother Teresa among the urban poor of Calcutta, India, Harper-Given transplanted her family from Halifax in 1998 to a small urban village called Dakudao, a slum area in Davao City, in southern Philippines.
 

One of Harper-Given's recent accomplishments was to give these poor people, the majority of them squatters living in dire poverty, a sense of community cohesion and dignity through a project funded by the Halifax Knights of Columbus. What was this project that transformed a community?
 

She built them showers and toilets.
 

Harper-Given, widow and mother of four, had the vision to recognize how two shower stalls and two toilet cubicles would transform this slum she has chosen to make her home.
 

For one peso (about three cents Cdn), the villagers, few of whom have water in their homes, can use the facilities.
 

"It's not quite enough to pay for the cost of the water and maintenance," says the slight 45-year old with her perpetual smile. She plans to gradually raise the user fee to a sustainable level. "They had to get the idea of paying for it first, and to understand the value of privacy and personal hygiene."
 

And value it they do. But even Harper-Given's vision did not predict the extent of the project's success. In fact, news has spread and she reports that the showers have started attracting visitors from beyond the Dakudao borders.

"There are people coming from two communities away to use the shower," she says now with mixed surprise and delight. "You can see them walking down the main road with their towel slung over their shoulder."

Harper-Given says she began thinking about the shower / toilet project when she first saw the women of Dakudao bathing communally in the open, fully clothed, at the central pump, dipping their tabo (plastic ladle with a long rigid handle) into a bucket.

She realized that these women had never seen their own bodies, and in fact had never known the experience of privacy. Also, since most houses don't have sanitation at all, she frequently witnessed a mother teaching her children to squat on pieces of paper, which were afterwards folded neatly and disposed of in a trash bin, or simply tossed.

For men especially, urinating anywhere convenient is a common practice. "The outside wall of my house used to be the communal urinal, resulting in a rather strong smell, especially in the mornings." She says this odour has eased since the public facilities opened early this year.

Harper-Given's story takes place in a region of the Philippines with a history of unrest and where the often unfounded perception of continued rebel and bandit activity perpetuates the cycle of poverty by retarding development. When she joined the Philippine nuns (Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity) in their work with the poor and the sick, she began her project Imagina. It is a broad vision for the Dakudao slum through various programs, including scholarships, microfinance and savings, a village elementary school, and structured community-building activities for youth, men and women.

Supported by several Halifax churches, as well as by individuals who contribute regularly to the project, and a Swiss-based non-government organization, Harper-Given began the steps to realizing her vision.

A series of meetings in Halifax eventually led to a large donation last summer from the Knights of Columbus Halifax Council 1097, through the assistance and commitment of Don O'Driscoll, who followed Harper-Given's story through her parents. O'Driscoll and his Brother Knights raised more than $5,000, which paid for the shower / toilet structure and related plumbing.

The communal "CR" - in local parlance this is short for "comfort room," a euphemism equivalent to the Canadian washroom - and the playground beside it have become a focal point for community activity.

Harper-Given says the project has even changed the way men and women interact, and that men have begun to spend time playing with their children. A village elder takes his job of holding the CR key most seriously. The open space, which was previously a junkyard, is used in the evenings for adult and youth activities such as chess tournaments and bingo. It serves as an open-air multi-purpose centre that is a common element of most Filipino communities, but is typically built on government land by a municipality - not in an urban squatters' slum.

The playground is run as a community co-operative with everyone who uses it also donating time to supervise. Alongside the playground next to the CR, in the shade of an overhanging roof to protect against the relentless tropical sun, the former Canadian pre-school teacher runs classes for little ones, who would never otherwise be prepared for the public school they will attend - if their parents can afford the transportation fee. If they're eligible, these children will graduate into the Imagina scholarship program, which provides clothing, school supplies, transportation, and snack money for poor school age children through to their high school graduation.

Harper-Given and her family live next door to the playground, in the building attached to the showers, a two-story wooden shack with open windows in the upstairs sleeping quarters, bare floors and no screens, so she is never far away should she be needed. She is an unofficial leader of the village, operating savings programs in empty mayonnaise jars, and often acting as arbitrator and counsellor for domestic disputes.

Saturday nights she runs a bingo, to keep the villagers away from the potent local rum, which can be purchased for about 75 cents a mickey, and the gambling tables that all too often end in violence, even death. Once in awhile she organizes a trip to the seashore for the Dakudao women, who are stuck in the tiny cycle of their lives and most of whom had never eaten in a restaurant or seen a beach, although they live in a coastal city.

During the week, she tends to orphans and abandoned children at a centre run by the order of nuns that brought her to this place.

Harper-Given has no formal training in development work, and does not even read about what others are doing in the field. She simply responds to the needs of her adopted community as she interprets them with her Western eyes.

What would be termed a "slum upgrading" or "social cohesion" project in development jargon is for her just doing what needs to be done. Neither has she any formal experience at fundraising, but her commitment has interested a number of donors, both for one-time large donations, and smaller, but long-term commitments.

Her main supporting church is First Baptist of Halifax, which has continued to support her Philippine work since it began four years ago. She also hand-wrote 88 thank you notes to acknowledge each of the contributing members from the Knights of Columbus Council 1097. "I just wanted to tell them personally, so they would each know how their contribution has radically improved the lives of these families," she says simply.

If you met Harper-Given at a social gathering, you might see her as simply a mother, with the same worries about her own children as any parent. Her eldest son Nathan, 19, graduated last year from a scholarship and bursary-assisted program at Kings-Edgehill in Windsor and will rejoin the family to help his mother this fall while taking a break from college; Cassandra, 16, is in a missionary high school in Davao, and works her non-school hours assisting her mother; Thomas, 14, also attends school in Davao; and their adopted brother Jericho (whose troubled natural mother gave him to Harper-Given when he was an infant), turning four in December, is a fixture of the preschool and playground.

But her true family extends well beyond that. Indeed, she has become a maternal figure for her entire village of 3,000. And like Noah when the rains came, her vision of dignity for the poor has become crystal clear to any who have witnessed the results of her community "comfort room" project. •

Inquiries about Imagina may be directed to Kim Harper-Given at 012 Sitio, Dacudao, Agdao, Davao City, 8000 Philippines.

Penny Poole is a Canadian consultant working in Manila, Philippines, on poverty-reduction projects, funded by the international development community.