................................................................
This is a sunset in the Philippines
(Photo
from Technoverde,Green
Technology Blog
.
Street children in the Philippines.
By.
coincidence in 1974 Lewy and felow students adopted Miss Wales, Helen
Morgan (Miss Universe was held in Manila that year) little knowing she
would end up in that country she had never heard of!
Lewy is assisting the local
craftspeople
( who worked for her in
the past)
create some beautiful bags. March 2007
Local
children join the employees children,
in anticipation of the job completion Party
Lewy's Daughters
MM The eldest
.
Tate (the next)
Joy (the third) and MMs kids
KC the Youngest
Congrats
Casey,
14 Aug 2008
Attained
"A" In Art
"B" in Biology
"C" in Chemistry
(In The British A Level Exams)
.
|
LEWY...... Her Tale
Lewy, was born in the village of San Leonarda, in the province of Nueva
Ecija. and
named
Maria Liwayway (dawn of a new day) Barlis,
and moved shortly after she was born to Cabanatuan City.
Her dad began a belt factory when she was 7 yrs old.
From that age she would join the workers in their toil
At that early age, she would not only help produce the goods, but also
wanted to improve some of the designs.
Lewy
at an early age used to feel compassion for the
the
children in the streets near her home who were very poor and some
living
in squalor. Probably this was a catalyst for her to create
beautiful things and try to hide herself from the ugliness that these
street
chilren faced every day.
She also wanted to be involved in the family
business
But
dad said no, "You
are going to be a nurse"
Due
to her parents hard work they were able to pay for Lewy to be educated.
There was a slight hicup when she got married and had her eldest
daughter
But she managed to balance the life
of a young mother and a student. Lewy obtained a degree of BSN at St.
Jude College of Nursing in Manila.
Inspite
of the support offered by her parents, she chose to work in the family
business proving to be independent. From early morning Lewy would work
on designing new styles for the belts and in her free time, she would
cut pieces of cloths from flour-sacs and sew them into pajamas to keep
mosquittos away from her precious little ones.
She
started to work in "Chinese General Hospital" at Quezon City but by the
time she had her third daughter, Philippines was having an economic
crisis. Life made it more financially difficult, as the salary was
never enough, and imported goods were also banned. This left Lewy
having no choice but to go and work in Saudi Arabia at the age of 28,
hoping to provide her children a better chance of having a good future.
Her parents agreed and willingly took care of their grand daughters.
While
in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, she found not being with her children was
unbearable. So she would focus her mind into something
that could
benefit her children instead. In her day offs, she would buy bags of
shells, all sorts of ribbons and hairclips. She would stick them
together in different styles and proudly sell them to her friends and
co-workers.
Before going home to Philippines, she would invest
in gold jeweleries and perfumes.So that during her 4 weeks
holiday, (still business-minded and desperate to get home
permantly) , she would sell them to rich families and
shops
It was nine years of going back and forth to Philippines every 6 months .
During this time, she was very enterprising,
trying to create businesses that would benefit her family, friends and
neighbours.
She opened a Hair Salon (she'd also learnt hairdressing and has a
diploma in hairdressing ).
She
built a school, the plan was that the fee paying children
would
help pay for some gifted children of the poor to be educated.
"BUT being an absentee landlord does not work"
This period of her life is best described by her youngest daughter (KC)
My apologies KC, I am not editing it as promised, I believe it is best
kept as you wrote it.
"Okay
papabear im tired and my eyes are hurting.~~~~
here are Mom's other fdjhsgjfjhjklfdyhjklhg :
At 37 mama stayed in Philippines for good- yay! I dont remember anymore
but she had lots of businesses,they're written in random ok? :-)
At
some point she had a salon where my uncle(jojo) was the night time
keeper. she had about 3 gays they're all nice but honestly they dont
cut peoples' hair nicely. One of them cut joy's hair ~she ended up
looking older than mama. This made joy cry a
looooooooooooooooooooooooooooot. mama provided my uncle a small
business a food stand, he managed to sell them off fine but at the end
mama got annoyed because there wasnt any profit. Soon the gays ran away
with their early salaries, shampoos wwhere missing too and who knows
what~the salon closed.
MAMA tried building up a school. My
aunties and her cousins or mine were again involved~ she bought about
2-3 diffrent land properties
the
school closed cause nobody would pay tuition fees
MAMA had
an export of cardboard picture frames.
the wwhole family were involved~even me. and Oh yeah Designer clothes
i think the whole village got involved this time.
Mama had a school bus drove by my grand dad and 2 uncles~
i think mama got sabotaged again.
she had more but im really tired noww.~~~~~~~~~~~~"
In
1999 Lewy impulsively signed up, to go and work in the UK,
hoping that life would improve......(she landed in Wales)
Now
it is the year 2008.
Her children are now self sufficient. So Lewy is
planning to sell
the jewellery, skin care...etc she is creating, and also all
the beautiful
things she has bought over the years and fulfill her dreams of helping
the poor in the Philippines ( 17 Feb 2008) |
Lewymor
