A memorable weekend. James and James visited Robyn fresh from the Philippines where they have been working with kids from the rubbish dumps there. Millilions of families throughout the Philippines live on the rubbish dumps recycling what they can to a make a subsistence living. Constantly surrounded by rotting smoldering rubbish children grow up, live and die tragically young. There are people trying to help these families and the Owen’s are amongst them… they worked with them over a ten day period teaching them performance skills and documenting the process. The result will be a feature film they hope to release and raise money to help these families break the cycle of dependance on working in these toxic environments. They also plan to bring some of the children to Australia to tell there stories around schools to raise awareness. The Owens report that because of the religious nature of the country (Catholic) some families have up to twenty children and are forced to abandon them on the dumps to fend for themselves. They were also amazed by the resilience and positive attitude of these people despite there terrible conditions.
Watch this space for more updates on the film release and complimentary projects in Mallacoota.
On a more hopeful note Victoria and her dad turned up with our canoe after a month.
Victoria is a year 9 student who opted to spend a month alone on the otherside of the lake as part of her school assessment. They are friends of friends of our and they were put onto us becasue she needed a canoe to escape if it all got to much or something bad happened. She was totally alone with half a days walk out to Dead Finish or a canoe trip across the lake. She was only a slight kid and looked amazingly young. People like her and the Owen boys do amazing things to my often flagging hope in the future.
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