Pictured here is the entrance to the home of World Sisters United Director Jessa Briones who lives in a typical squatters village in Metro Manila. This house is put together with scrap parts and found objects. During the last big typhoon in 2006 it took a big hit and the roof of this house blew away. We are trying to raise the money to rebuild this house by putting in a concrete floor, cinder block walls and tin roof. Jessa's dad and uncle got an estimate on rebuilding it and it came to US$1500. check out my previous blog: http://larriji.blogspot.com/2008/02/bunso-jessas-family-needs-house.html
According to this article http://www.filipinasmag.com/free_2007Meloto.html about Antonio Meloto who is a recipient of the 2007 Filipinas Magazine Achievement Awards:"In the Philippines, nearly half of the country’s 84 million people are credibly said to live below the poverty line. Forty percent of its urban families occupy what the Asian Development Bank calls ‘makeshift dwellings in informal settlements.’ Slums, in other words"
The severity of this problem is beyond comprehension. What my aim here with World Sisters United is to raise up the lifestyle of a handful of our Directors all around the Philippines to where they can focus on other aspects of their life such as finishing their education and realizing their potential. I chose the various WSU members because they showed leadership qualities, sharp minds and have good hearts. After we get our Directors established on more firm ground in the material world they can then help to barn-raise other peoples houses and small businesses all funded by microgiving dollars from donors like you. All the time we will be creating micro-documentaries to show the progress we make and the lives being impacted and your dollars put to good purpose.
The really hard thing to imagine is that 13 people live in this house. From my estimates it's about 120 sq feet. I asked Bunso Jessa how can so many live here and she said they live "like sardines". Unfortunately we can't expand the footprint but we can certainly make it a dwelling that doesn't take in water. When I was there in Nov 2007 I noticed that water would run through the floor because there wasn't a proper floor, or proper walls to prevent this. This house basically takes in any water over flow from the close-by swamp. This swamp is an accumulation of sewage and run off water from the surrounding Metro Manila area. 
Pictured here is one Bunso Jessa's little sister playing in this mold infested house where she lives. For just US$1500 we can rebuild this house and make it solid and mold free. Last year I gave the money for this family to build and stock a small eatery that provides a great deal of their needed income. If families like this don't have some kind of income their daughters like the one pictured will opt to sacrifice themselves and join in the ranks of the sex industry. This will pretty much sew up their fate and they rarely can rise above such a life. They never complete their education and they usually have very short miserable lives as sex workers in the slums of Manila.
In this picture you can clearly see black mold that is a major feature on the interior walls. As most of you know this causes tremendous health problems. With the new house we build here we can alleviate the black mold problem. (Note the previous blog where Jessa's mom has chronic blackouts and needs a CAT Scan.) We are asking for any donation, small or large to build out this house and make it a proper concrete house with tin roof. We will be posting progress on the construction of this house. Please join in on this international barn-raising effort where we join in as a global community and pitch in what we can.Please help us build Bunso Jessa's house!
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