+ A
A -
AFP
Manila
Reymark Cavesirano, 13, leaves before dawn each weekend day on a perilous trip out into Manila Bay to make enough to feed his family, one of millions of deeply poor Filipinos who face a daily struggle for survival.
Aboard a raft pieced together from discarded wood and sheets of styrofoam, he uses his bare hands as paddles for the hour-long journey to the fishing boats where he works. About one in five of the Philippines’ 106 million people live in extreme poverty, getting by on less than $2 per day. Many, including children, work long hours as street vendors or labourers to make enough to feed themselves.
Cavesirano, along with men at least twice his age, helps fishermen clean their nets by removing fish stuck in the gear.
He keeps the fish as payment, paddles back to land and then sells them to buy food and medicine for his family. “My back usually aches from paddling but I cannot stop. I have to continue because we need to eat,” Cavesirano said.
The boy, who attends elementary school during the week, lives with his grandparents in a shelter pieced together from bamboo and plastic sheeting in a squatter community on the shore of Manila Bay. He is estranged from his mother.
Cavesirano’s grandmother Remedios Santos said she was against her grandson working because of the risks he faces on the water but he was persistent.
“I told him it is dangerous. But he said ‘Mama, other people won’t help us in life. So I will help you’,” said the 55-year old Santos, who still works as a scavenger.
Manila
Reymark Cavesirano, 13, leaves before dawn each weekend day on a perilous trip out into Manila Bay to make enough to feed his family, one of millions of deeply poor Filipinos who face a daily struggle for survival.
Aboard a raft pieced together from discarded wood and sheets of styrofoam, he uses his bare hands as paddles for the hour-long journey to the fishing boats where he works. About one in five of the Philippines’ 106 million people live in extreme poverty, getting by on less than $2 per day. Many, including children, work long hours as street vendors or labourers to make enough to feed themselves.
Cavesirano, along with men at least twice his age, helps fishermen clean their nets by removing fish stuck in the gear.
He keeps the fish as payment, paddles back to land and then sells them to buy food and medicine for his family. “My back usually aches from paddling but I cannot stop. I have to continue because we need to eat,” Cavesirano said.
The boy, who attends elementary school during the week, lives with his grandparents in a shelter pieced together from bamboo and plastic sheeting in a squatter community on the shore of Manila Bay. He is estranged from his mother.
Cavesirano’s grandmother Remedios Santos said she was against her grandson working because of the risks he faces on the water but he was persistent.
“I told him it is dangerous. But he said ‘Mama, other people won’t help us in life. So I will help you’,” said the 55-year old Santos, who still works as a scavenger.
