Jane: Why I won't quit!

AS THE Boeing droned through the inky darkness towards Heathrow, Jane Walker considered the letter she had sent her boss from the Philippines. It had contained her resignation.

"There was so much going through my head during that ten-hour flight," she says. "True, I had become a Christian and wanted a new direction in my life even before going to the Philippines. But I had no idea what lay in store there.

I simply wanted a three-month secondment from work and used the opportunity to visit a childhood friend who lived near Manila. I had notions of a spiritual experience, chilling out and reading the Bible. Images of a lovely tropical island filled my head too".

Yet within minutes of being greeted in Manila, cold reality hastily revised her pre-conceived idyll.

As her friend drove them from the airport, Jane saw the tumbling shacks of the poor spilling into the road.

"I was in a state of shock but wanted to get out and look around", she says. "But my friend said I was insane and locked the car doors instead."

Yet curiosity continued to tease. Jane read about squatters in local papers before learning of the cemetery settlement. She arranged a visit and the day that changed her life unfolded.

Now back in Britain, Jane informed her family she was jobless and outlined her school vision.

They thought she was mad but her mind was made up.

Working as a freelance, she began sending donations to a contact in Navotas who would oversee and effectively project manage the building of a new cemetery school.

Jane also immersed herself in the Philippines' tortuous history to gain an understanding of the country's poverty.

A picture of a crippled nation confined to its sickbed emerged.

The Philippines has long been incapacitated by an economy woefully equipped to support a rapidly-growing population on course to reach 111m by 2015.

While increased foreign competition has eroded profitability of its electronic and clothing industries, political fragility, cumbersome bureaucracy and corruption have further deterred potential investment.

The result is one-third of government revenue is used to pay off interest on the nation's debts, ensuring health, public services and education remain low priorities.

State schools, for example, are chronically overcrowded and 70 children per class is not uncommon. But at least they are in school.

The celebration which marked the opening of Jane Walker's school amid the tombs of Navotas cemetery was therefore understandable.

Jane had solely financed the new building which replaced the asbestos shack where she had met Juliet on that eventful day two years earlier.

It was a remarkable personal triumph and 60 grateful cemetery children were enrolled.

But it soon became apparent that improved schooling would achieve little in isolation. Hungry children cannot learn and neither can unhealthy ones riddled with worms.

An all-encompassing, co-ordinated approach underpinned by sound business principles would be required. It led to Jane forming The Philippine Community Fund (P.C.F) as a British Registered Charity in 2002.

It would work to both co-ordinate new initiatives and encourage grant - making trusts and corporations to bankroll the charity's work.

The P.C.F aimed to improve the quality of life for the dumpsite families and empower them to change their working environment.

To this end, the provision of pre-school education would be supported with feeding initiatives, clean water programmes and preventative medical assistance.

Jane also embarked on whirlwind tours of the Philippines to publicise the charity's work among the country's movers and shakers.

A breakthrough came in April 2002 when the government agreed to let her use a huge empty building near Smokey Mountain for a second school.

Another followed in Baguio and today the charity's three schools - plus one partner school in Bacolod City - educate over 500 children. Each child has received a uniform and shoes and they now enjoy a daily lunch.

Some 160 pupils in the 8-16 age group have never been to school before and are being educated in special classes to enable them to join mainstream education later on.

Only the most marginalized children gain access to the P.C.F schools, which are registered with the government. And, unsurprisingly, there is a waiting list.

In parallel, the P.C.F schools provide literacy and business skills classes for 100 adults while health prospects have been improved this year by the opening of a P.C.F-funded water filter station at Smokey Mountain and a family welfare and health centre at the cemetery.

A light, albeit faint, is now shining at the end of a very long tunnel. And it's held by a diminutive woman from Southampton who the grateful locals fondly call "Ma'am Jane" - Lady Jane.

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JANE WALKER is sitting in her study, a broad smile mirrored by snaps of beaming Filipino children pinned to the wall behind.

Sister Ange is seated opposite, her fingers energetically tapping a computer keyboard. It transpires she joined Jane's crusade two years ago.

Laughter ping pongs to and fro across the table, negotiating an assortment of paper stackers between them. Wall charts smothered in coloured stickers and folder-laden shelves frame the relaxed scene.

All the same, it's a trifle disarming for the casual visitor.

For here, in this Hedge End home they share, two unassuming women are effectively improving the lives of thousands of the world's poorest people.

When this point is made Jane deftly diverts credit to her 30-strong team working in the Philippines.

The mother-of-one is equally prepared for predictable praise directed at her. It's softly parried with considerable charm.

When she vanishes momentarily from the room, Ange helpfully offers a sister's perspective. "Jane's a truly exceptional person, you know. Totally focused, totally caring, totally devoted. She inspired me to give up my own job as well and help."

Jane returns with a folder containing details of the P.C.F's most ambitious plan to date: construction of a new four-storey school to provide continuous education from the age of four right through to High School level.

The sisters believe this project could help sweep away child labour for good on Smokey Mountain but £250,000 is required to make it a reality.

The P.C.F, informs Jane, is also lobbying to improve the pay and conditions of the one million or so who make a living from the 700 open dumps in the Philippines.

In the meantime, an imploding Philippine economy continues to haemorrhage labour, leaving the dispossessed to head for the tips.

Around 4,000 now scavenge on Smokey Mountain while the cemetery population has grown to 5,000.

But failure is an alien concept to the Hedge End sisters.

Instead words like "progress" and "achievement" punctuate the conversation as Jane reaches for another folder containing individual case studies.

Inside is the story of John, a neglected, unresponsive boy who was rescued from a dump and has learnt how to read and talk; there's the tale of a former cemetery boy who received cancer treatment and will enrol at High School this summer; and there's June, a deaf girl from Smokey Mountain, who has been enrolled at a deaf school in Malinta.

It's a chronicle of hope borne from faith.

I ask where it will all end.

"I've been doing this for nearly ten years now and I won't stop", is the reply. "I visit four times a year and always look forward to helping on the rubbish tips.

"It's such a privilege to be with them. They are the most dignified, special people you could hope to meet."

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

It costs just £12.50 per month to rescue a child from the dump site or cemetery by providing education and care.

For full details of the PCF's child sponsorship programme and information on making donations, contact Jane Walker on 01489 790219 or e-mail: jane@p-c-f.org.

Or donations can be sent to The Philippine Community Fund, PO Box 294, Hedge End, Southampton, SO30 2YD. Full details: www.p-c-f.org