From another friend who is also from Manila, Philippines, she told me that at times you could even see a whole family sniffing away. Can rugby really make them full?

Somewhere in Cebu, Philippines, “A woman was walking on a flyover along Osmeña Boulevard when a small kid suddenly grabbed her blouse and stretched his hand to her as a sign of asking for something while his other hand holds a plastic containing a yellowish substance.

Aghast and caught off-guard, the woman took some coins from her bag and put them into the boy’s grimy palm. Then he runs to a pack of children huddled together in one part of the flyover, sniffing plastics of strong and addictive industrial glue…” Could this be a familiar scenario to you too?

What do you think we can do to help? In an article I read, from associated content, “…there is a law prohibiting the selling of solvents to minors without parental consent ….” And yet there are store owners who are still selling rugby illegally to minors and even teaching the children how to get away with buying rugby. The law must be there to prohibit the sales of solvents to minors without parental consent and the people who illegally sell solvents to children must be severely dealt with.

However, on top of the law, we will also need a long term solution. My friend and I thought that shelter, foods and even stable livelihoods will be the long term solutions. If the children in the street can be fed and protected with love and care, will they let go of the bottles, plastics or papers of rugby in their hands? I believe they will.

Providing shelters, foods, livelihoods seem to be the straightforward solutions. The question is, “who should be the one providing them?” Should it be the sole responsibility of the Philippines Government? Most will agree? I believe that besides the government, any organisation and individual with the resources could provide aids too.

How about the general public? When united, the general public will be the powerful driving force to see through projects by government, organisation and individual. What else do you think can be done?

I believe first and foremost, the opinion about the street children needs to be changed. According to an interview with Cameron Sugden (a volunteer with the organization Bahay Tuluyan in Manila), “…Street children are often called ‘yagit’ by the general public – which translates as ‘rubbish on the street’. This is something very sad. From young, I have been told that children are the future of the nation.

Almost every new school year I had new bag, stationeries and textbooks. Not to mention new school uniforms and shoe. I didn’t remember I had to wear a pair of shoe with holes in them for long.

In the school, the classroom was well sheltered with cement walls. It was well ventilated with windows and ceiling fans. The classroom was also properly lit with lightings. To further entice us with school, each of us had our own desk and chair. When we needed to sit on the cement floorings, we had proper mats to sit on. We even had regularly dental checked up to make sure we brushed our teeth.

What else did we have to worry about? Practically nothing, except probably with the examinations.

And yet, going through school seemed to be just a chore of growing up for me. I was pretty much going through the motion. Yes, still remember I mentioned I was an ‘ungrateful’ boy; I had very much taken everything for granted.

I had thought that literacy was a natural part of children my age. I didn’t know that being able to read and write were special privileges to many but not all. I didn’t know that in worlds away from mine, education was, and still is, a luxury to many … probably to many of them, it didn’t even cross their minds since they are struggling to survive.

According to UNESCO, “… one in five adults is still not literate and two-thirds of them are women while 75 million children are out of school.”

Back in 2003-2005, while I was working oversea, I remembered seeing children roaming in the street; some of them were peddling bracelets made from small white flowers, and some were running between cars, that stopped in the traffic, to ask for money.

One of my friends mentioned once that he was very tempted to unwind the window to pass the children some money but he stopped himself. He asked himself, “will I be doing more harms to these children than good if I pass them some money? If I do, they may have the wrong perception that money comes easily through begging.”

I kind of agree with him. If we give a person a fish, we feed the person for a day. However, if we could teach the person how to fish, we could ‘feed’ the person for life.

Literacy may not be the immediate solution to solve a person’s livelihood. Literacy will however, provide a person with the basic of learning and from there onwards, hopefully it will enable the person to further learning on his/her own. And hopefully with empowerment from literacy, the person’s life will improve eventually.

According to UNESCO on the important of literacy, “Literacy is at the heart of basic education for all, and essential for eradicating poverty, reducing child mortality, curbing population growth, achieving gender equality and ensuring sustainable development, peace and democracy.”

September 8 will be the International Literacy Day, which aims to highlight the importance of literacy to individuals, communities and societies. With education, I hope that one day those children running in the street will have better lives.

What do you think we can do? I have read in some blogs that we can make donation to organisations that have on-going literacy projects, or to volunteer in your communities to teaching adults and children how to read and write and we can also donate books to the library or organisations that bring these books to countries that need them.

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BetterWorldBooks.com - is one online bookstore that collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide. All books are available with free shipping to any location within the United States (or $3.97 worldwide). And in case you’re concerned about your eco-footprint, every order is shipped carbon neutral with offsets from Carbonfund.org.

Chicken A La Carte is an inspiring short film by Ferdinand Dimadura, produced in 2005.

How fortunate most of us are, to have food served readily on our tables hot from the stove. And yet some of us have often taken the food for granted. We have so often reminded our young ones to be grateful for the food served to them and yet we are guilty of taking our food for granted at time.

I was once talking to a friend about not wasting food in restaurant and she shared with me a remark her friend made, “would finishing the food on the table made a difference to all the hungry people in the world?”

Her friend certainly has a point there especially when we view from her friend’s perspective. Finishing up all the food on the table would not make a difference to all the hungry people in the world and forcing all the food down would not be good for health too. What else could her friend have done? What can we have done?

Then it dawned upon me, “although it is not a good habit and bad for health to finish all the food we have ordered in the restaurant, we can order the amount of food that is within our capacities.” In other words, “do not order more than we can finish.”

In doing that, we do not waste food and we do not do harm to our healths by over eating. I know, we still wouldn’t make a difference to all the hungry people in the world, but this is the first step. What’s next? Let us start from around us?