Serving the Poorest of Manila’s Poor

Nov. 14, 2024

Abandoned children in Philippine shanty town find love and healing in the care of the ANAK-Tnk Foundation

By Columbia staff

Nov. 14, 2024

Father Matthieu Dauchez (in white cassock), director of the ANAK-Tulay Ng Kabataan Foundation, speaks to the K of C delegation during their visit to one of the foundation’s day care centers in the Aroma neighborhood of Tondo, Metro Manila, on Aug. 21. Photo by Tamino Petelinšek

On Wednesday, Aug. 21, the Knights of Columbus delegation traveled to two of the most impoverished slums in Metro Manila, areas of the northern Tondo district known as Happyland (from “hapilan,” meaning “smelly garbage” in the Visayan dialect) and Aroma. Here, abandoned children and orphans often fall prey to forced labor, trafficking and violence.

Among those seeking to protect these vulnerable children is Father Matthieu Dauchez, a French-born priest of the Archdiocese of Manila who serves as director of the ANAK-Tulay Ng Kabataan (“A bridge for the children”) Foundation. Father Dauchez welcomed the K of C delegation and guided them through the circuitous streets to visit several of the foundation’s centers.

“Happyland is basically the slums of a giant landfill,” the supreme knight recounted. “One hundred thousand people live on top of garbage in small shelters — it’s heartbreaking poverty, gut-wrenching. But at the same time there is so much hope there, because the volunteers of Father Matthieu’s foundation are doing extraordinary work.”

Since 1998, ANAK-Tnk has provided thousands of abandoned children access to education, nutrition and protection. They are all cared for in family-like homes, from which they go to school and visit their families whenever possible. ANAK-Tnk also opened centers for abandoned elderly persons in 2017.

Father Dauchez explained that material poverty is not the primary problem.

Supreme Master Michael McCusker (right) greets a resident of Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin Home for Elders, run by the ANAK-Tulay Ng Kabataan Foundation, on Aug. 21. *Photo by Tamino Petelinšek*

“When I arrived in 1998, I was sure that if we provided a roof, food, clothes and sent the street children back to the school, everything would be solved,” he said. “But no, we found that the biggest challenge for these children who have been rejected by their own families is for these wounded hearts to be healed, to feel that they are worthy to be loved.”

The joyful faces of the children and smiles of the elderly residents the Supreme Council delegation met attested to the love and healing at work in the ANAK-Tnk centers.

At the conclusion of the visit, Father Dauchez noted that he was touched by how the delegation interacted with people, accompanying them in their sufferings, if only for a moment.

He added: “I asked the supreme knight to ask all the Knights of Columbus in the world to pray for our mission, because if the Lord is with us, we can be sure that the foundation will go on.”

Serving the Poorest of Manila’s Poor

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