Jewelry from Smokey Mountain

Jewelry from Smokey Mountain

By April O. Millo and Nicole Scaffidi

Unlike people’s misconception upon hearing the name, ‘Smokey Mountain’ is not a natural landmark. It does not resemble a picturesque view nor does it inspire poets to conjure beautiful words to describe it. However, Smokey Mountain does inspire students at University of Toronto at Scarborough Campus to delve into their altruistic side and raise awareness about the invisible people in the Philippines.
Smokey Mountain is located in Tondo, Manila, where massive piles of garbage are deposited daily. It has earned the name ‘smokey’ from the dangerous chemicals (such as methane and dioxins) that fumes from the decomposing heap of garbage. Not only is it a waste disposal, it also serves as a place of residence to some of the poorest people in the Philippines and the world.

Additionally, residents around the garbage heap have come to rely on Smokey Mountain for their main source of income. They collect what they can salvage from the refuse and they sell it for a very cheap price in many recycling posts around the area. Everyday, hundreds of men, women and children endanger their lives climbing up the mountain filled with broken glasses, used needles, and other jagged objects. Through their working and living environment, their lives are largely compromised. Furthermore, the lack of medical facilities, doctors, nurses and free health care makes it harder for them to live longer and healthier lives.

Now, stop for a moment and think about how these people live. Can you imagine living in a place surrounded by garbage and breathing the same toxic air day and night? Can you imagine yourself living in a ‘house’ made up of cardboard boxes and tin roofs, knowing that small bouts of rain can destroy the whole structure? Will you be able to survive with nothing but garbage to keep you alive? How will you cope, when the fragility of life becomes so apparent?

Unfortunately, the truth is, for most of us, we take our lives for granted. We think of ourselves as unlucky or deprived when we don’t have the latest cell phones, clothes, shoes or the newest version of ipod. We rarely think about how millions of people continually struggle to meet the basic necessities of life. Rarely do we ponder about how the poor and the marginalized people are oppressed. Or how, in the year 2006, women in most countries still lack the same power, rights and privileges that are available to most men.

Under Professor Pamela Sayne, students of Applied Women and Development not only learned about the paralyzing poverty that people in the Smokey Mountain continue to experience daily, of the poor sanitation which results in poor health and high rates of infant mortality, but we also learned about the various definitions of the word ‘development’ and its contrasting effects on different nations. We came to understand how a development model used in North America could easily become a form of maldevelopment when applied to another country. As a way of illustration, globalization, which results in creating more businesses and industries is a form of development. However, wastes produced from these various businesses become a form of maldevelopment when they are not properly regulated. Waste management, as exemplified by Smokey Mountain, can become an insurmountable problem. More importantly, maldevelopment greatly compromises the basic needs and rights of the marginalized sector, especially the women.

Aside from recycling, reducing, reusing and raising awareness, students of Applied Women and Development have developed other methods in order to help the men, women and children living and working in the Smokey Mountain. One such group, the ‘Feminist Organizing for Change and Challenging Unequal Status’ (FOCCUS), is selling jewelry made by Filipino women from the Smokey Mountain area. The jewelry is made from recycled products and all the money that is made from this will go directly to the people in the Smokey Mountain. They have sold some of these handmaid jewelries during Women’s International Day on March 8 and during the Filipino Awareness Week at University of Toronto at Scarborough Campus on March 30th. If you would like to buy some of this jewelry or if more information is needed about the group or the jewels, be sure to check out http://foccus2006.tripod.com/ or email them at foccus8@gmail.com.