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Lighthouse Girls Home
Being light to the lost
Lighthouse Home gives girls brighter future
Lighthouse Home gives girls brighter future
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Julie Ann in her room at Ang Bahay.
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QUEZON CITY, Philippines—On the floor of a clean white room sits a brown-eyed girl looking very blue.
She might be only 9 years old, but Julie Ann already has carried more burdens than some 59-year-olds.
When case workers from the Ang Bahay Parola home for girls found Julie Ann about eight months ago, she was doing dishes and laundry full-time for neighbors. Raising Julie Ann and her three siblings in a creek-side dump near Metro Manila, her mother had to pull her out of school to help feed the family.
Still unable to make ends meet, Julie Ann’s mother did the only thing a poor single parent in her spot could do: She gave her four children up to agencies who could find better homes for them.
“It has been very painful for Julie Ann,” says Myrtle Cegales, 27, a social worker who runs Ang Bahay. “A few days ago, she cried and cried. She didn’t understand why her mother had to bring her here.
“Her mother feels so hopeless. She wants the best for her children.”
Street Children Network
Such is the preponderance of working and abandoned kids in the Philippines—1.5 million nationwide and at least 75,000 in Metro Manila, according to government estimates. As soon as Ang Bahay discharges one girl it gets another, Myrtle says.
Public and private agencies that serve those kids around Manila have formed informal street children networks. If one home finds a child who would fit better in another, a worker makes a phone call.
They might be kids, like Julie Ann, who should be in school but are working full-time.
They might be like her friend Eunice, who came to Ang Bahay the same day that Julie Ann did. Workers found Eunice, 10, scavenging through garbage looking for recyclables on school days. She hoped to make 60 pesos ($1.20 USD) a day, enough to buy 3 kilos (about 6 ½ pounds) of cheap rice for her family. (Three kilos is enough to feed a family of two adults and three children for about a day.)
Eunice’s situation—a disabled father unable to work and a mother with no job skills—compelled Ang Bahay to pull her out of the home, Myrtle says.
“She spent a lot of time [scavenging] instead of going to school so she could help her mom and dad,” Myrtle says of Eunice. “She was the breadwinner already. She was motivated by her mother to do that. No one in the family could look for a job.”
The first task is spotting the kids who need help, and then establishing contact. For example, Ang Bahay workers often hang out near the busy Ever Gotesco Mall in Quezon City and watch for kids who seem to be roaming.
“We stay there and observe to see how the street children interact—where they eat, how they work,” Myrtle says. “We make friends with them, bring them food and coloring books.”
Building that relationship is the next step. That may involve visiting the family, if there is one, or just talking frequently with the child. If all parties agree, the girl comes to Ang Bahay for a one-week trial—no strings attached.
“There’s no pressure,” says Myrtle, who helped start Ang Bahay five years ago. “From experience, I know it should be her decision. It should not be me.”
Some girls, such as Eunice and Julie Ann, are slowly making the transition to their new lives. Some of their housemates, fresh off years on the street, haven’t found the constraints of stability all that desirable.
Hard Adjustments
For starters, many girls are not toilet-trained when they arrive. Girls who wet the bed, even the 12-year-olds, share a special room. When they’re able, they move in with their permanent groups, which function as family units within the home.
Education presents another challenge. Because some girls have attended little or now school, Ang Bahay has several 14- and 15-year-olds in 4th or 5th grade. Of the 22 girls at the home, only Julie Ann and Eunice, who had previous school experience, go to public school.
Most of the other girls need so much special attention that Ang Bahay started a Christian learning center last year. A member of Jesus Cares Presbyterian Church—which meets on the second floor of Ang Bahay’s building—owns a private school and helped start the program.
Most disturbing is the history of abuse most of the girls carry in with them and the anger and pain that result. Abuse comes both from family members and from strangers who take advantage of kids on the street. “Physical and sexual abuse is one of the big factors with the kids here,” Myrtle says. “There are sexual behaviors to deal with.
“They’re really aggressive when they come in,” she adds. “It takes them one year to adjust to this program.”
That program comprises a routine of Biblical counseling and devotional time coupled with dance and art therapy that encourages the girls to express themselves in positive, creative ways. Jesus Cares Church also hosts parenting seminars, marriage and family seminars and other events specifically for parents of street kids.
‘Risky Position’
As demanding as the job is, Ang Bahay also feels the pressure of a new push from the Philippines Department of Social Welfare and Development.
DSWD is pushing long-term homes like Ang Bahay to make their programs more community-based. Translation: Reconcile kids with their parents and get them back into their homes.
DSWD is giving homes like Ang Bahay up to three years to restructure their programs to comply with the new model. To get there, Myrtle wants to develop skills-training courses that will prepare the home’s older girls for independence—sewing and baking, for example.
The advantage to the DSWD’s new program is that it makes homes think about what is going to happen to their girls once they’re grown. The disadvantage for the younger ones, particularly the orphans, is that they don’t have a home to go to. Ang Bahay is under the gun to find adoptive parents for those girls; otherwise, they’ll go right back to the street, Myrtle says.
Not that the plan lacks merit: Myrtle and her co-workers already try to reconcile families whenever possible, to point of sleuthing out families who have hidden from or forgotten about their daughters (she’s successfully reconciled three girls with their families that way).
The big question facing the staff is how to repair the irreparable. Myrtle says some agencies that are going to the community-based programs are pushing to have abusive fathers pulled out of the home rather than the children.
“Seventy percent of the girls cannot be reconciled back to their families,” Myrtle says. “They’re in a risky position. If the families are missing or they (the girls) are abused, they cannot be placed back with the families. That is the biggest challenge we have to answer in the next year.”
She might be only 9 years old, but Julie Ann already has carried more burdens than some 59-year-olds.
When case workers from the Ang Bahay Parola home for girls found Julie Ann about eight months ago, she was doing dishes and laundry full-time for neighbors. Raising Julie Ann and her three siblings in a creek-side dump near Metro Manila, her mother had to pull her out of school to help feed the family.
Still unable to make ends meet, Julie Ann’s mother did the only thing a poor single parent in her spot could do: She gave her four children up to agencies who could find better homes for them.
“It has been very painful for Julie Ann,” says Myrtle Cegales, 27, a social worker who runs Ang Bahay. “A few days ago, she cried and cried. She didn’t understand why her mother had to bring her here.
“Her mother feels so hopeless. She wants the best for her children.”
Street Children Network
Such is the preponderance of working and abandoned kids in the Philippines—1.5 million nationwide and at least 75,000 in Metro Manila, according to government estimates. As soon as Ang Bahay discharges one girl it gets another, Myrtle says.
Public and private agencies that serve those kids around Manila have formed informal street children networks. If one home finds a child who would fit better in another, a worker makes a phone call.
They might be kids, like Julie Ann, who should be in school but are working full-time.
They might be like her friend Eunice, who came to Ang Bahay the same day that Julie Ann did. Workers found Eunice, 10, scavenging through garbage looking for recyclables on school days. She hoped to make 60 pesos ($1.20 USD) a day, enough to buy 3 kilos (about 6 ½ pounds) of cheap rice for her family. (Three kilos is enough to feed a family of two adults and three children for about a day.)
Eunice’s situation—a disabled father unable to work and a mother with no job skills—compelled Ang Bahay to pull her out of the home, Myrtle says.
“She spent a lot of time [scavenging] instead of going to school so she could help her mom and dad,” Myrtle says of Eunice. “She was the breadwinner already. She was motivated by her mother to do that. No one in the family could look for a job.”
The first task is spotting the kids who need help, and then establishing contact. For example, Ang Bahay workers often hang out near the busy Ever Gotesco Mall in Quezon City and watch for kids who seem to be roaming.
“We stay there and observe to see how the street children interact—where they eat, how they work,” Myrtle says. “We make friends with them, bring them food and coloring books.”
Building that relationship is the next step. That may involve visiting the family, if there is one, or just talking frequently with the child. If all parties agree, the girl comes to Ang Bahay for a one-week trial—no strings attached.
“There’s no pressure,” says Myrtle, who helped start Ang Bahay five years ago. “From experience, I know it should be her decision. It should not be me.”
Some girls, such as Eunice and Julie Ann, are slowly making the transition to their new lives. Some of their housemates, fresh off years on the street, haven’t found the constraints of stability all that desirable.
Hard Adjustments
For starters, many girls are not toilet-trained when they arrive. Girls who wet the bed, even the 12-year-olds, share a special room. When they’re able, they move in with their permanent groups, which function as family units within the home.
Education presents another challenge. Because some girls have attended little or now school, Ang Bahay has several 14- and 15-year-olds in 4th or 5th grade. Of the 22 girls at the home, only Julie Ann and Eunice, who had previous school experience, go to public school.
Most of the other girls need so much special attention that Ang Bahay started a Christian learning center last year. A member of Jesus Cares Presbyterian Church—which meets on the second floor of Ang Bahay’s building—owns a private school and helped start the program.
Most disturbing is the history of abuse most of the girls carry in with them and the anger and pain that result. Abuse comes both from family members and from strangers who take advantage of kids on the street. “Physical and sexual abuse is one of the big factors with the kids here,” Myrtle says. “There are sexual behaviors to deal with.
“They’re really aggressive when they come in,” she adds. “It takes them one year to adjust to this program.”
That program comprises a routine of Biblical counseling and devotional time coupled with dance and art therapy that encourages the girls to express themselves in positive, creative ways. Jesus Cares Church also hosts parenting seminars, marriage and family seminars and other events specifically for parents of street kids.
‘Risky Position’
As demanding as the job is, Ang Bahay also feels the pressure of a new push from the Philippines Department of Social Welfare and Development.
DSWD is pushing long-term homes like Ang Bahay to make their programs more community-based. Translation: Reconcile kids with their parents and get them back into their homes.
DSWD is giving homes like Ang Bahay up to three years to restructure their programs to comply with the new model. To get there, Myrtle wants to develop skills-training courses that will prepare the home’s older girls for independence—sewing and baking, for example.
The advantage to the DSWD’s new program is that it makes homes think about what is going to happen to their girls once they’re grown. The disadvantage for the younger ones, particularly the orphans, is that they don’t have a home to go to. Ang Bahay is under the gun to find adoptive parents for those girls; otherwise, they’ll go right back to the street, Myrtle says.
Not that the plan lacks merit: Myrtle and her co-workers already try to reconcile families whenever possible, to point of sleuthing out families who have hidden from or forgotten about their daughters (she’s successfully reconciled three girls with their families that way).
The big question facing the staff is how to repair the irreparable. Myrtle says some agencies that are going to the community-based programs are pushing to have abusive fathers pulled out of the home rather than the children.
“Seventy percent of the girls cannot be reconciled back to their families,” Myrtle says. “They’re in a risky position. If the families are missing or they (the girls) are abused, they cannot be placed back with the families. That is the biggest challenge we have to answer in the next year.”
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