Another Week, Another Rally!

Saturday June 7, 2008

Well, today is a rest day for us, and we are heading out to the Mall of Asia for a movie, to pick up some popular education supplies like big paper and markers for teaching, and to eat Jamaican patties, which are masarap!

Thursday June 5 we had another urban poor exposure in Pasig, but this time we met with party list Bayan Muna organizers and discussed the process they followed in organizing their community. This was a great overview of their organizing work. It is similar to the process followed in other communities: starting with health sector work, medical missions, gaining contacts, starting committees, going deeper with the organizing. I now have a good sense of how things are initiated and followed through. Billy, in particular, enjoyed this day, as he made some friends and played pass the basketball – they couldn’t really play as the courtyard we were meeting in was far too small. The girls were having giggle fits as Billy is so much taller than the older boys. This was a special exposure for me as I met the 2 community midwives, one who does the home births and one who runs the birth centre. It was so much fun, and we had many laughs over birth stories and sharing the differences and similarities in our experiences. The birth centre was lovely! I will post some photos. It would be great to come back and spend some time with these midwives; they are very skilled and caring, with about 15 births each per month and each other as back up - they even do breeches! They have been working for 12 years, so much experience. What a chance it would be for me to learn, and to share my own knowledge!

Friday we had a 5 hour meeting and discussion with the Director of International Affairs for Bayan, the New Patriotic Alliance. It was a fabulous discussion. We covered all of the core issues: economics, low wages, hunger and poverty, political killings, political corruption, the struggle to oust GMA, the US military, mining, and Comprehensive Agreement on Agrarian Reform (CARP) and landlessness. We also had the privilege of discussing their organizing process, from which I drew many ideas and lessons; and the longer-term vision of social change, but that is all too much for this blog.

After our marathon meeting on Friday, I shared more with the two women who are CHD organizers as well as graduates of the Fabella School of Midwifery. They are fairly new grads, eager to start a clinic and do births and maternal-child care as a component of their organizing work. It is inspiring that midwives play such a central role in CHD organizing work. It was a fun discussion because we were sharing the differences in maternity care, such as the importance of tetanus vaccination in pregnancy and avoiding neonatal tetanus – something we are definitely not taught at UBC. I informed them that I brought some emergency skills text books and I think we will do some deeper skills sharing after I return from Boso Boso. I hope that their vision comes to reality and I can provide some assistance in the future; I would like to do the same thing in Vancouver – so we have great contacts in each other!!

Finally, to wrap up a busy and fruitful Friday, we attended a marathon march and rally. We started at the Lung Centre with a protest of the health workers against government plans to privatize several speciality hospitals, as well as a general rally to raise the wages and reduce the prices of rice and oil; basically to alleviate the economic hardship of the people that is leading to rising hunger, malnutrition and disease. Sophia enjoyed this rally as she met some friends and played clapping games. After a rousing rally, we marched to join the KMU and other unions in protesting the VAT (value added tax) which exacerbates hardship in such difficult times and ends up lining the pockets of corporations and corrupt politicians. Finally, we marched as a larger group to the DAR (Dept of Agriculture) to support the peasants in their demand to scrap CARP (Comprehensive Agreement on Agrarian Reform) and institute a just distribution of land. It was a 3 ½ hour marathon, and it was just getting going at the DAR when Aiyanas, the kids and I headed home for a late dinner and bed time!

After this lovely rest, clean, wash, grocery shop and pack weekend, we are heading out to Boso Boso on Monday. In this semi-rural community the Parish Priest has organized for women to come to the clinic to see me for 3 mornings! So my role as a midwife is finally coming to life. However, I am also to do some teaching. On top of that, I am bringing my compact birth kit just in case! One of the CHD midwives is joining us in case of a birth and to help with the popular education and training on mat-child health. This is good, as CHD has much experience with their style of teaching, and I would appreciate to at least see how someone does it here before I am solo on the content, just supported with translation!

Each experience teaches me (all of us, really) about the experiences, conditions and struggles of the Filipino people. It is also, however, very exciting to think of the possibilities to use my growing skill sets back in Canada; for Community Diagnosis, for organizing projects, for health work, and for building that community of resistance we were dreaming about at the OC. Finally, the possibilities for ongoing solidarity work are great. Now off this computer!