Photo taken from a beach in Sihanoukville.
I live in a small second-floor studio apartment in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Every day, I take the saddest five-minute walk from my flat to my workplace.
Continue readingThe saddest five-minute walk
Tag Archives: children
First, they wanted to make criminals out of nine-year olds
Back in the Philippines, activists are fighting legislative moves to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) from 15 to 9 years old. Working abroad, I could only speak out on social media. Had I been there, it wouldn’t have been impossible to see me with activists marching against the bill. The last two days, especially reading about the twisted logic of congressmen and senators who are justifying such a move really got me down. I’m feeling hopeless about my country and the ‘public servants’ who are supposed to serve the public interest but in reality, are serving their monster president in Malacanang.
Continue readingDo you see them?
Last week I was in Bangkok, oblivious to the fact that the Ms Universe Pageant was being held and the Philippine beauty Catriona Gray was winning. I don’t care much about pageants, and I didn’t know who she is, but on my return, my social media news feeds were filled with her photos, and the one above struck me the most.
Since I started working on children’s programs recently in Cambodia, I am acutely more aware of them now. And despite my long experience in social development, this is the first time I am working in an organization focused on children. I was pleasantly surprised that the new Ms Universe has done some work with children in the slums and highlighted them in the Q&A.
Continue readingChildren need trees
Fieldwork at Chickabompalli, learning from the community. Photo by Shaiju Chacko
An amazing thing (among many!), at least for me, happened during the fieldwork our group had for The Workshop 2015 (19th Praxis Commune for Participatory Development), In Bangalore, India. The facilitators wanted at least each of the four foreign participants to join different groups. I was luckily made part of this awesome group composed of Shaiju, Nidhi, Nancy, Nitin, and Afsar. Shaiju proposed for the group to be named Phil-Indies, marrying the names of the two countries represented.
shielarcastillo 