An eight-year boy Nul Jumadi stops going to school three years ago. Finishing only second grade, he dreams of continuing his studies, but to help his poor family, he prefers to sell cigarettes and candies on dangerous sidewalks in downtown Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines. (Zamboanga Journal)ZAMBOANGA CITY (Zamboanga Journal / 23 May) At the age of eight, Nul Jumadi is already working to help the family. Selling cigarettes and candies on dangerous streets and sidewalks in Zamboanga City, Nul says helping his family is the best thing he does now.
"I want to study of course, but I need to help my poor family. I only finished second grade and I don't know if I can go back to school again," he says, biting his lips as he talks and a little shaken and nervous about the interview.
"I am a Muslim, and I lived just on the other block. I am helping my mother sell these cigarettes. I have brothers and sisters too," Nul says, breathing deeply for every question asked about him and his family.
Nul's mother, who just returned from the market, says her boy will go back to school. "He will study, my boy will study again. He finished second grade and he will study again, I hope," she says.
Nul is only one of many children in Zamboanga City who was forced to abandon school to work and help their poor family. Street children are many in Zamboanga. They sniff chemicals on sidewalks and some smoke cracks to get high. Despite occasional government drive to round up the children, authorities seem helpless to stop their growing number.
Street children say they find happiness in the company of other abandoned kids rather than their own family. "My family is not good. My father and mother had abandoned us and my sisters and brothers are thieves. I live on the streets and I am happy now. I don't want to go to school, I rather stay here with my friends," says a 10-year old boy, Maco.
Like the children in Lumbangan village in the eastern coast where the government dump is located, many also abandoned school to dig for scrap and help feed their family.
There are no sustainable livelihood programs for the poor, they say and the children are often sick in Lumbangan because of the strong stench of garbage, and worse, no politicians ever visited the area to check on the situation there.
Children, as young as two years old, are now regular diggers in the garbage dump, about 10 km from the bustling downtown Zamboanga. Rodel Cabayacruz, 13, has spent half of his lifetime in Lumbangan scavenging for scrap — papers, tin cans, and even rotten food — just to be able to help his family.
"I come here every day and I don't mind the stench. What is important to me is I bring a little money for my brother's milk. We are so poor that my mother cannot even send me to school," he says. And like Nul, the children in Lumbangan also dream of going back to school again.
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