Teach Them To Fish ②

Continued from Teach Them To Fish ①


So, we started to send him small amount of money. Only a couple hundred dollars a month.
One dollar went a long way at $１＝ P50+Pesos.

We wanted to teach him money management. So, we requested that he would write and tell us how he spent his money each month.

We never received the money report. One time, we asked if he was receiving the money from us. The answer was NO. Oh, dear, what ever is happening to the money we sent him?

The next time I went to the same youth center, I was thanked by the keeper of the center repeatedly for the money we sent. Hey, we didn't send 'you' the money!

It turned out that the money was used to feed the entire 'family' who was living there!


I felt so small. Here, I was aiming to teach this young man money management while it was helping the entire family!

You see, while in the Philippines, we easily spent an average worker's day's wages in one breakfast! What an arrogant thinking I had that I thought we can teach this young man how to handle his money. They don't even know where the next meal is coming from. There was a huge gap in my understanding of the economic differences here.


This young man was able to not only finish his high school but also went on to graduate from college. By the time I returned to the Philippines about 10 years or so later, he was married and running his own Tricycle business. Tricycles, along with Jeepneys are their main mode of transportation.

Just this year, some friends of ours went back to the same village and brought back a picture of this young man and his growing family.

He became an architect and a mason. He is building a house for his friend now.

Mind you, we even thought of adopting him and bringing him over to the States to give him a 'proper' education and better life. However, we realized that bringing him here, totally uprooting him from his environment may not be the best thing for him.

Good thing that we didn't.

Give a man fish. He'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish. He'll eat everyday that he fishes.

Sure we could have given him a fish everyday. But this way, he learned to 'fish' daily on his own. (^_-)-☆

                                            Are you teaching somebody to fish today?


Leo and his family ...