A good friend of CADD is Kim Smith, who
lives in Manolo Fortich on the island of Mindanoa in the Southern
Philippines. Manolo is a place of extreme poverty, graphically
described by Kim in a recent e-mail to us :-
“Everything costs money and they don’t have any.
People die for the want of a simple aspirin to thin the blood
after a heart attack. 1 in 5 carry hepatitis to an early grave
and a massive number of untreated diabetics watch their bodies
rot away, always knowing what kind of end they will have (it’s
gruesome) but simply unable to afford the medication. If you’re
sick and you’re poor, you just die. With poor sanitation,
little or no health education, poor nutrition...lot’s
of people get sick. Old people are a rarity when compared
to the UK. Essential milk supplements, minerals and vitamins
are just too expensive and a lot of kids get sick too.”.
One of the key problems of the area is a severe lack of education
- without access to learning facilities, there is no opportunity
for people to escape the poverty trap of Manolo. In order
to address this problem, two American ex-pats, David and Carlyn
Hooyer, are building a free library for the locals out of
their own pockets. However, stocking the library with books
is going to be a problem, and Kim is hoping that our members
will be able to help out -
“We need every kind of book we can get our hands on.
Old and not-so, text-books and kid’s books, novels,
paperbacks, Milnes and Boones, biographies.........everything.
Leftovers from jumble sales and of course all the stuff that
many libraries send to the incinerator after its shelf-life.
We’d be SO grateful of your help.”
If you have any old books that you don’t need any more,
Kim, David and Carlyn would be extremely grateful, and we
hope you will agree that this is a wonderful cause. Please
send books of ANY type or subject to the following address
:-
David Hooyer
Dumotan Street
Poblacion
Manolo Fortich
Bukidnon
Mindanoa,
The Philippines
If you need any further information, or would like to help
in any other way, the best way to contact Kim is by e-mail
at kim@kimsmith.co.uk
.
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