Think about how your mornings usually go. You wake up in a comfortable bed. You get to decide whether to sit down to a full breakfast or skip it for a quick coffee and pastry on the way to school or work. It’s mundane. Routine. The kind of everyday we’ve grown so used to that we hardly notice it.
But for a small community in Tondo, Manila, one of the many families who live in and around the area’s dumpsites, the everyday looks very different. Their mornings are streets lined with the neighborhood’s trash, the rumble of trucks unloading the day’s collection, and the heavy smell that hovers over all of it. To them, this is simply normal. Especially for the children, born into such circumstances.
And yet, in the heart of this underserved community, there is a haven.
It’s called Kalayaan Community Ministries. Founded by Ron and Joanna Domingo, KCM has served the recycling community of the Tondo dumpsite and the families around it for years. We partnered with them for the free medical outreach. It’s open not only to the members of their organization, but to every resident in the area.
Kristine, a KCM staff member and a licensed nurse, told us that while their local church runs its own medical drives, they still lack the resources to provide more medicine and dental care for the people they serve. From the very start of our planning, the KCM team gave us nothing but excitement and support.
We have to say it: they have a lovely community. Their area was even large enough for us to bring in more than 40 volunteers, both medical and non-medical. Our team set up stations for pharmacy, nurse check-ups, doctor consultations, and dental care. And because our goal is to help not just each patient’s physical needs, we stationed our prayer team at the very end of the triage. We know the residents are used to this life, but the daily fight for survival and decent healthcare is hard. While we can’t dramatically change their circumstances, we can offer comfort through prayer.
From the first patient to the last one of the day, outreaches like this always leave a bittersweet feeling. We are grateful to have the resources, the team, and the capacity to help communities like this one. But it’s just as heartbreaking to hear how often residents skip routine check-ups simply because scraping together the money for a clinic visit is so difficult. Many don’t know how or even have the awareness needed to apply for medical assistance. They line up at health centers from the crack of dawn until late afternoon just to be seen. And most often, only once an illness has already taken hold.
For most of us, a clinic visit is a box to tick for work. A hospital stay means recovery. Medicine means getting better, faster. But for them, these are simply expenses they can’t afford.
It’s frustrating to witness their situation, but it’s also humbling to see how openly they welcome the help offered to them. We never once felt shut out. There was no hostility. These were simply people hoping to find out whether they qualified for the care we came to give. And it was often the smallest things — a smile, a hand to guide them to the venue — that made their faces light up, as they realized this was open to anyone who needed it.
We saw the elderly. We saw the mothers who brought their children. We saw the bright, hopeful smiles of little ones who still have their whole lives ahead of them. That is why we hope to return to this area again and again, and do even more than we did this time. We can dream bigger, because the people of Tondo deserve it.