CLAIMING A FUTURE FROM A PROBLEMATIC PRESENT: THE MEANING OF URBAN CITIZENSHIP FOR SLUM YOUTH IN MET

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CLAIMING A FUTURE FROM A PROBLEMATIC
PRESENTTHE MEANING OF URBAN CITIZENSHIPFOR
SLUM YOUTH IN METRO MANILAMary
RacelisInstitute of Philippine CultureAteneo De
Manila University
Paper presented at the International
Symposium, Cities of Extremes Claiming
Citizenship in the Urban Milieu Institute of
Social Studies, and Development and Change, Den
Haag, 15-16 October 2007
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Young People from Urban Informal
SettlementsSpeak Out
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• Joven, 16, Barangay Sasa, Davao City
• I was still young when my mother asked me to
  become a street vendor because we were very poor.
  I sold whatever I could. After some time, I began
  to take on heavy work. Now that I am unemployed,
  it is very difficult because when I wake up in
  the morning, I have nothing to eat it is is very
  depressing. We eat only at noon and at night. It
  is all right for us if we have only boiled
  bananas on the table as long as there is
  something to eat.
• Children, Barangay Leon Garcia, Davao City
• We are poor. We know that because we are not
  able to eat three times a day, we dont go to
  school and we dont have clothes. We cant buy
  things like a TV or radio, and we live in a
  squatter area. Children like us work to add to
  our parents income and sometimes we work because
  our parents dont have an income.

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• Joseph, 13, Barangay Leon Garcia, Davao City
• I wish to become a seaman someday but I only
  finished grade 2. It would be hard for me to go
  back to school even if my parents support me. I
  would be embarrassed because I am already 13
  years old.
• Ana, Payatas, Quezon City
• The children who are in the most terrible
  situations are those whose parents have abandoned
  them. So, because they have to fend for
  themselves, they have to do things like scavenge
  all day. Some parents even sell their children!
  Other parents send their child out to work as a
  domestic servant, who is often beaten if he or
  she makes even a tiny mistake. Others like them
  dont receive their wages.

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Why a disaggregated approachin studying urban
poor youth?

• Although young people in slum settlements share
  the same problems and opportunities with their
  parents, they have special needs
• Ramphele (200224-26) emphasizes the importance
  of poor young peoples developing
  self-confidence, trusting relationships, and
  managing the daunting risks they face growing up
  in slums and informal settlements
• Sommers (2003 36) stresses the importance of
  countering alienation among the young, and
  enabling them to participate in programs that
  will make them dignified contributors to their
  urban economy, culture and civil society.

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The Institute of Philippine Culture Study

• Making Philippine Cities Child Friendly Voices
  of Children in Poor Communities A five-city
  study of informal settlements in the Philippines
  (Cities of Manila, Pasay, Quezon, Cebu and Davao)
  
• Research focus Urban poor male and female youth,
  aged 13-17, who lived in the 5 cities. Their
  views and opinions on their situation were culled
  mainly through focus groups
• Study methodology
• Case studies in 3 of the 5 cities (Payatas in
  Quezon City BASECO in Manila and Sasa and Leon
  Garcia in Davao City)
• Quick appraisals in 26 of the barangays in the 5
  cities

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Growing Up inUrban Informal Settlements
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An Overview of Urban Poverty

• Sixty per cent, or 1.8 billion, of the urban
  poor, are children and youth below the age of 18
  (Tulchin et al 20031).
• In the Philippines, urban poor children and youth
  constitute 5 of the 7 million urban poor
  Filipinos who make up 8.2 of the total
  Philippine population of 85 million.
• In the National Capital Region (where Metro
  Manila is located), 681,096 families, or
  3,750,000 individuals, live in densely packed
  informal settlements averaging about 370.11
  families per hectare.
• 57 on government-owned land
• The rest (43) in privately-owned properties and
  danger zones

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BASECO in Tondo, Manila(Photo by Ed Gerlock)
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BASECO in Tondo, Manila(Photos by Ed Gerlock)
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Payatas in Quezon City(Photo from ADB, The
Garbage Book)
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Payatas in Quezon City(Photo from ADB, The
Garbage Book)
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Payatas in Quezon City(Photos by Ed Gerlock)
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Growing up Poor in an Informal Settlement

• Insecure land tenure the treat of demolition and
  eviction
• Many children in the streets and alleyways
  playing, running errands, hawking cigarettes and
  candy
• Illegal electricity and water connections
• Uncollected garbage which multiply flies, lice,
  and rats
• Many children are malnourished, lack in good
  health care, get sick (diarrhea, typhoid fever,
  cholera), and die
• Some children and youth sniff glue or get high on
  drugs in an effort, say the youngsters, to forget
  their hunger and misery

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Despite their sordid surrounding, children value
their community

• They value their family and are proud to be
  contributors to the family income
• They value their community associations, kin, and
  neighbors who offer a variety of safety nets of
  mutual help
• They value their friends, their barkada (peer
  group)
• They value local ceremonies commemorating
  religious events, and occasions such as
  birthdays, weddings, and funerals

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Some Questions

• How do youth in these settlements see their lives
  now and in the future? Is the growing disparity
  between rich and poor evident in their thinking?
• What do adolescents expect of their parents,
  communities, government, and society?
• How are they likely to fare in rapidly growing
  metropolitan cities and the mega-urban regions
  engulfing them?
• Can urban poor youth the world over play
  catalytic roles for change in the 21st century,
  despite their current deplorable economic,
  social, and environmental backgrounds?

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Some Critical Concepts for Understanding the
Situation of Children and Youth

• Social exclusion all deprivations that
  diminish a persons life and freedom (Sen in ADB
  2000)
• Human security represents a situation in which
  all people have access to their basic needs and
  rights
• Citizenship a multi-dimensional perspective
  which incorporates the agency, identities, and
  actions of people themselves (Gaventa 2005)

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Inclusive Urban Citizenshipand Excluded
Adolescents
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The Principle of Justice

• Entails young peoples understandings of when it
  is fair for them to be treated the same and when
  it is fair that they should be treated
  differently from others
• Salve, 9, Payatas, Quezon City
• We have neighbors who make their children work.
  They do not send them to school. I wish the
  parents would work otherwise they wont be able
  even to send their children to first grade. Its
  a good thing that at least now, these neighbors
  are sending their 14-year-old to start grade one.
  Children should go to school and not work because
  they are still children.

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The Principle of Recognition

• Being regarded as full persons with the right to
  have rights (Hannah Arendt), and being treated
  with dignity and respect. Exclusion denies full
  personhood to certain groups and formalizes this
  in law or policy.
• Elena, 11, Payatas, Quezon City
• When youre poor, life is hard. I have a friend
  who is pitiful because he has no mother, father,
  brothers or sistersno one at all. He has nowhere
  to live, and collcts discarded plastics to sell
  so he can eat. Yet, kids older than he grab his
  food and money, and even hit him.

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The Principle of Self-determination

• Signifies exercising some degree of control over
  ones life
• Rosana, 17, Barangay Sasa, Davao City
• I was accused of being a member of a gang that
  encourages sexual activities among its members.
  That really hurt me as it destroyed my image in
  the community. I just want to enjoy being with
  my friends. That is all we are doing at the
  videoke house. I wish they would understand that.

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The Principle of Solidarity

• Implies the capacity to identify with others and
  to act in unity with them in their claims for
  justice and recognition
• Glenda, 17, Barangay Sasa, Davao City
• Kaugmaon organizes activities for us, like
  camping. We enjoy it because we get to know other
  people. We sing, play the guitar, dance and have
  fun. Other than that, we get a chance to share
  our problems with other young people. Through the
  activity, we become more informed about our
  situation and the issues that affect us.

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The Most Excluded Urban Youth
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Working Youth

• In the Philippines 4.1 million children and youth
  below 18 work, or 16.2 of the age group, with
  60 of them in hazardous conditions. Many work
  full-time and do not go to school (34 have
  dropped out of school before 6th grade), or go
  part-time and work part-time (Del Rosario and
  Bonga 2000).
• Jojo, 11, Barangay Leon Garcia, Davao Dity
• I am not able to concentrate on my studies as
  much as I wish because I have to wake up at dawn
  to go to the market, where I earn money as a
  porter so we can have something for breakfast. Il
  attend school in the morning and when I am in
  class, I feel sleepy. I have difficulty
  understanding the lessons. So, I fail my
  subjects. I am in grade 3 for the third time!

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Youth in Conflict with the Law

• Ichang, 13, Leon Garcia, Davao City
• I know of incidents where some youth I am not
  sure if they were really from this barangay
  were arrested by community residents when they
  were found in the streets late at night. They
  were taken to the barangay hall and were scolded
  because they had been drinking. Their parents
  were called and were also reprimanded.

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Youth Groups and Dangerous Gangs

• Young people find outlets in joining gangs but
  are also victimized by them.
• Gilbert, 16, Barangay Leon Garcia, Davao City
• My home is so problematic that I often seek the
  company of friends. With this group, I learned to
  smoke marijuana and sniff rugby. We were a tight
  group. If one is accosted by an enemy gang, we
  protect each other. But I realized that my life
  was not going anywhere so I have stopped going
  around with them.

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Chief Concerns of the Youth(Source
McCann-Erickson 2006 Inter-Generation Study)
BASE 501 youth respondents
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Assessing Youth Accessto Rights and
CitizenshipThe Rights to Survival,Development,
Protection,and Participation
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The Rights to Survival and Development

• The Right to Survival In the five Philippine
  cities, this has been generally met in that most
  have managed to survive to adolescence, although
  hunger has often been a chronic part of their
  growing up
• The Right to Development More elusive, since
  many drop out of school at an early age, and feel
  additionally insecure in poor housing whose
  occuipants are subject to demolition and eviction

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The Rights to Protection and Participation

• The Right to Protection Falls largely into the
  category of self-help (e.g., joining gangs),
  since the local police and barangay leaders are
  seen largely as unjustly targeting young people
  for the formers ire
• The Right to Participation Perhaps the other
  most violated principle is the right to
  participation. Young people complain that they
  are not taken seriously either by their elders
  but especially not by their barangay government.
• Says a Youth Council member
• The Sanggunian Kabataan is only a decoration . .
  . nobody pays attention to it. If there are no
  elections, goodbye.

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The Way Forward

• When NGOs, faith-based groups, and occasionally a
  sympathetic local official come into the picture
  and mobilize the young in feasible directions, it
  works.
• Only if government policies oriented to the
  particular concerns of poor urban youth are
  scaled up building on civil society efforts as
  well as drawing in the participation of the youth
  themselves, will the latter have a slightest
  chance of entering the mainstream.
• A rights-based agenda is imperative.

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Sarah Benitezs Five-Point Approach (2003)

• Broad-based strategies that prevent young people
  from falling into poverty must be put in place
  (e.g., basic education and skills acquisition)
• Ensure the inclusion of excluded youth in basic
  services programs like health care and in legal
  systems that tend to keep them out, while making
  schools more welcoming to poor youth, as in the
  model of child friendly schools.
• Dovetail protection and basic services access
  with youth participation for an coordinated move
  forward.
• Ensure the cooperation of NGOs, who are best
  placed to offer the kinds of skills needed for
  community empowerment, even as government plays a
  stronger role in funding innovative partnerships.
  
• Do periodic assessments to ascertain that the
  targeted groups are in fact experiencing the
  outcomes that were meant to happen.

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Conclusion

• Rampheles (2002 25-29) insistence on building
  relations of trust between young people and the
  adults in their lives. The proper positioning of
  key social institutions is central to enabling
  young people to manage the risks that mark their
  lives, and negotiate their way successfully into
  a healthy engagement with society.
• It is when poor children and youth see their
  conditions of life as being amenable to human
  control and influence that, as Ramphele points
  out, fatalism gives way to risk management. It is
  when these young people dare to conceive of a
  future different from their present circumstances
  that their creative energies will be unleashed.