Most Dangerous Ways To School - PHILIPPINES

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we all know it walked it every day [Music] but none of them were like these the world's most dangerous ways to school [Music] freezing climbing risking their lives all for the chance of a better future spectacular and sometimes simply beautiful the world's most dangerous ways to score someone are they're not they a peninsula in the southern Philippines children who want to get an education here have one of the most dangerous and most extraordinary ways to school their school is located in the heart of the mountains deep in the rainforest in circumstances like this it's hard for many students to get an education some walk alone to the jungle for hours others risk their lives in order to make it past in this Bambang a steep face of rock and boulders overgrown with moss and tree roots a gigantic wall that the children must climb every single day in the hopes of a better future [Music] [Music] when the Sun rises on Mindanao at 5:30 a.m. it gets light quite suddenly the day begins early this close to the equator Zamboanga is located in the northwest of the second largest island in the Philippines the thinly populated coastal strip gives way to sharply rising mountains in the tiny fishing settlement of Madiba Bo the day begins with the break of dawn and thus also begins one of the most dangerous ways to school in the world when the rooster crows Ida proceso wakes her family there's no time to lose her daughter ivy has class in two and a half hours before getting ready she helps her mother make breakfast like every morning there's rice fish and Moringa the processors can't afford anything else like 86% of the Filipino population the family lives in poverty I go to high school in oral it's a longest and very difficult Ernie everyday hustle down here on the coast there is no school for the eleven-year-old every day she has to walk uphill through the jungle it's no coincidence that her school is located on the neighboring mountain nor is it bad planning in this region of the Philippines families live far apart from one another scattered across the mountain slopes the coast and the woods the auto elementary in high school has a central location [Music] more than 2500 feet further up Ivy's classmate Ryan gazes dreamily down on the fishing Bay the 12 year old lives high up on the summit for him it's already high time he started off to school but first Ryan has to help his grandmother well dependent run on the rain up here look if it doesn't rain you don't have any water coming through big : then I have to come down here before so will we get water from the pond but we've gotta go through only then can we go to school it's over half a mile to the fountain and back but more than the long distances it's the isolation up here that makes life so hard for Ryan he lives in a small cottage along with his grandmother and all his friends from school live far away together they raise pigs every couple of months Ryan's grandma sells one down in the markets in the villages that's enough for them to survive on but she wants Ryan to have a better life someday school is the first step Ryan isn't like other children he's wonderful he helps me with the housework and with other work he always does what I tell him to do but he only has a few friends to play with up here he is playing on his own most of the time he's a daydreamer Ryan's parents live in the capital Manila 500 miles away their dream at least a little prosperity the reality Ryan's father doesn't have a good education and has to make his living as a motorbike taxi driver he doesn't earn enough money to feed his son in the city so ever since his third birthday Ryan has lived here every month his father sends a support check about 17 US Dollars even in the mountains of Mindanao that's not much it's just enough for a breakfast of rice and instant noodles Ryan's grandmother packs the leftovers for his school lunch [Music] I interlaced I go to school because my dream is to be an engineer's well then earn enough money to fly to my parent - a nice tuna to realize his dream the boy has to walk more than two hours to school whatever like okay every morning when I see him go it breaks my heart every day he takes the path down to oral without complaining the jungle the roads child shouldn't have to go to school like that what can I do it's the only school and his only chance to become something decent to get to school Ryan must descend for miles through nearly unspoiled nature and the 12 year old has to hurry in fact he's already late class starts in two hours 6:00 in the morning time is also getting short for the processor family in the fishing settlement of Madiba gone right after eating breakfast I be has to go to school until a few months ago her older brothers accompanied her but since they graduated they've been looking for work in the city it was good when my brothers were still there vehicle they could tell me where I should step or what I could hold on to I felt safer now I have to find my way by myself India one last touch-up in the mirror before going an eleven-year-old girl should have other things on her mind than worrying about how she'll make her way to school today without getting hurt I bees mother used to be a teacher at her school Ida climbed the path with her children together but she's no longer physically capable of making it on her daughter's route whenever I see IB go I'm always reminded of the accident I was with her I was climbing a few feet underneath her and all of a sudden she felt towards me luckily I was able to hold on to her I can't bear to think that she's alone on the wall now I see my new lesson fun fun the closest larger town in which there's something like medical care is about twelve miles from muddy Baku Dapitan city someone lives here who knows the way over the steep face better than almost anyone else Frederic comes from IB settlement today he's the principal in Ottawa nan Kappa no longer poem by topic oh I know exactly how dangerous it is for the children I went that way for years myself and that's why I actually don't want the children coming to school over the crack but I also know that some don't have any choice experience within a gang hit up the older son because of his own experience Frederic along with the school board has even officially prohibited families from taking the route over the steep face but he also knows on the one hand he can't tell anyone which path to take and on the other hand it sounds much easier than it actually is for the children shortly after he leaves the city on his motorbike it becomes apparent why that's the streets Ahmadi Paco normally bag or this is the only Street to the school in you have to go along the coast first and then it's twice that distance to get to the school it's an uphill walk most people can't afford a taxi at all one u.s. dollar that's how much a ride on a motorbike taxi to school costs but i beez family simply doesn't have the money and going around would mean walking for hours so for decades children from a debacle have been taking the shortcut through the jungle and they have to make it over this a steep face the people here simply call it pumpin which means something like short crossing a crossing from the coast to the mountains from water to rock it rises all of a sudden like a huge wall in some places its slope is 90 degrees the naked rock is overgrown with slippery moss and roots many people have fallen here some have critically injured themselves while trying to climb bumping that's why the children from Annie bago prefer to go together I hope there are some older kids today it's not I have to live a younger one sad life in fact other children are already waiting at the meeting place so they can climb pom pom together but it's only eight year old show Molly and his younger brother Shannon who will share the path with I be today at the age of eleven ivy is the oldest and as such is responsible for the other children school is compulsory in the Philippines too but only through sixth grade and many children simply don't go to school one in ten is illiterate meanwhile Ryan has reached Cobra Rock which is inhabited by highly poisonous but thankfully timid snakes Ryan is not afraid of them he likes to play in the high grass too much and he has encountered snakes more than once while doing so [Music] not good once I was running up the hill and afternoon I wasn't looking down all of a sudden I heard tax pack and my leg hurt I sneaked and I grass lunged at me and bit me here in the calf luckily for Ryan it was only a subway a non-poisonous variety of snake not the Filipinos spitting cobra which lives here in the mountains and can kill with one bite [Music] [Music] six-thirty school starts in one and a half hours Ryan still hasn't covered even 1/4 of the way yet the three children that the foot of the mountain have also made little progress they're approaching the most difficult part of their daily routine [Music] I always get a bit nervous when we get close to Palm Pilot it scares me Shema V and his brother Chanel are in second grade their trail which children in flip-flops have trodden down over decades of the jungle is getting increasingly steep even this early in the morning the temperature on their way to school is already over 85 degrees Fahrenheit in addition there's also the high humidity of the jungle and they haven't even gotten to the hardest part yet meanwhile up on the mountain Ryan has reached the coconut fields sometimes he encounters the coconut farmers here cutting new notches and the palm trees with their machetes they use these notches as steps to climb up the trees and harvest the coconuts by hand along with rice and mangoes coconuts are the most important crop in the region but the yields from the mountain fields aren't big enough to play a role in the large-scale export business it's too difficult to transport the coconuts down to the cities most are sold at markets in the mountain villages it's almost 7 o'clock already school begins in one hour but the heat is getting to Ryan sometimes when the farmers let him the 12 year old takes a short break and catches a breeze [Music] coconut trees reach a height of 65 to 100 feet one mistake and Ryan would fall straight down but the mountain children learned the special climbing technique at a young age and the knotch steps provide good support although time is getting short Ryan isn't thinking of getting right back to the trail at school he's even better at doing handicrafts and inventing things than he is at climbing trees as long as he's already up here the daydreamer is happy to take a breather he dreams of working as an engineer and have some day visiting his parents in Manila [Music] but he also knows that the key to realizing his dreams isn't up in the crown of a palm tree but a couple miles further down the mountain [Music] I be sure Molly and Shanna have reached the steepest part every time she gets here YB thinks about the day her mother's saved her life in the nick of time it rained that day I've been a policeman right up there that's where I slipped she would have been dashed against the rocks if Ida hadn't caught her but Abby's mother isn't there today the 11-year old is on her own and has to lead the younger children right as the children are about to get started someone comes from the other direction the iron rule on pom pom the person climbing down has right of way at some parts the rock ledges and roots are so narrow that only one person at a time can climb on them [Music] it's one of the fishermen who climb down everyday from their homes in the mountains to feed their families for them Bambang is more than a shortcut it is the most important connection between life on the mountain and life on the coast hold on tight kids let luck did--they it's very slippery today but they need a quick well-intentioned piece of advice and then the children are all alone again their way up the steep face is now free i beez father is also a fisherman while she's up here climbing he's making the families living on the Sulu Sea a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean the Sulu Sea is quite shallow along the coast the fishermen can walk hundreds of yards out to their boats but a little later the ocean floor drops off sharply to a depth of up to four and a half miles BIM process oh never got an education but he knows his children's way to school very well she should be up there right about now I always look up when I paddle out to go fishing I wonder if it's right to send my daughter on a path like that what can I do after all she has to go to school traditionally the fisherman cast nets into the bay to catch fish there were times when enough fish swam into his net when Ben could actually afford a motorbike taxi for his children but this luxury has become rarer and rare the caches are getting worse and worse [Music] Macha three fish that's actually pretty good for one morning sometimes I even get five I don't want my children to become fishermen well if that's what they were but they ought to learn something useful that's why they have to go to school once again the catch is just large enough to feed his own family Ben hasn't sold fish for a long time now and that's why he simply doesn't have the money to spare his daughter the dangerous journey to school [Music] frederik the teacher is proof that education can function as a path out of poverty he too came from a fisherman's family in Madiba go and he took the way to school overpumping every day Oro has one primary and one secondary school with a total of 340 students Frederick teaches first through fourth grade plus kindergarten fifth through tenth grades which IB and Ryan attend are in a separate building right next door bullit now I think I'm kind of a role model for the children I'm an example for them that they shouldn't give up the path is worth taking no matter how difficult it is ah that in a metaphorical sense the path is also a path to one's goals in life Ryan's break in the palm tree lasted a bit longer than he planned it's 7:15 at 8 o'clock that is in 45 minutes class starts if Ryan doesn't hurry up now he'll get there too late [Music] but instead of getting a move on he enjoys a coconut that he is just scavenged again and again along the lonely path over the mountain ridge the 12 year old gets lost in his own thoughts Mila I think of my parents a lot of Pierre was I don't know when I saw the last sodaro it's been a couple of years now nothing good I missed him a lot keep that I wish they were a year if I got a yo-yo [Music] several hundred feet below I be Kumari and the seven-year-old Chanel have other problems to deal with the three children have reached the steepest part of bump on this is where most accidents happen the wall changes constantly according to the weather conditions each day the children need to read it afresh and find new paths up it the only thing they have to hold on to are the roots that grow out of the wet soil and wrap themselves around the rocks some are sturdy some are not afraid I sleep here a couple of times the children climb slowly following the 3-point rule that means they should seek a new support with only one arm or the lake at a time a necessity if they want to survive on their way to school another rule the oldest goes last thus IB keeps her eye on the others can guide them from below and in an emergency can perhaps still react and catch them [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] while her daughter continues to climb up pom pom I bees mother walks a few hundred yards along the road to her new job to save the very youngest children from having to make the climb the government has at least opened the kindergarten on the coast and Ida is the teacher in return for working there six days a week Ivy's mother gets about 23 US dollars a month the children in the kindergarten always remind her of her own daughter [Music] when Ivy was that age she was a very shy girl that didn't change until she suddenly had to climb pom pom alone since then I barely recognize my child she's suddenly an adult and she pays a high price for it just like those children who now go to kindergarten soon will as long as there is no school on the thin strip of coast they will also have to take the dangerous path there is no longer any trace of I bees earlier timidity courageous and confident she leads the seven and eight year old up the crag their strength is fading climbing takes it out of them especially the two boys it's important for them to maintain their concentration as it's especially slippery today [Music] [Music] done exhausted the children struggle the last few feet of the crag their arduous ascent has taken them more than a half hour for the moment I be as relieved the 11 year old has led the boys to safety is extremely difficult engine model s but their journey isn't over yet no time to rest school starts in 40 minutes and from this point the children still need at least that much if they hurry [Music] up on the plateau several children from the surrounding villages have already reached the school in order and they're supposed to be there early every morning before school starts all the students and the teachers clean the ground the children from muddy boggle and the remote mountain settlements rarely participate Frederic the principal doesn't have the heart to punish them or to be mad at them Minaya those children who live far away almost always come too late all we can do is offer to spend time in the afternoon reviewing the material they've missed Omega what with Iona intervenes in yen from the other side of the ridge Ryan finally reaches a building a building he knows only too well [Music] it's the daro elementary school the village school he used to attend it also has a kindergarten there are only three rooms and three teachers first and second grade share one room and one teacher as two third and fourth grade I went here from kindergarten to fourth grade DK Tongan grade for the boss that's all the further it goes the lappet lungs it don't it's cool there's no secondary school here that's why Ryan now has to go all the way to order at least from here on he walks along the road many of his former classmates don't go to school anymore the way is simply too long for them [Music] almost eight o'clock after the climb I beam the two boys are hurrying through the undergrowth of the mangrove forest the 11 year old is determined not to arrive too late [Music] they reached the school grounds just in time many children from the surrounding area are already there [Music] the children for Madiba go are happy each time they managed to beat the bell like today [Music] school begins at eight o'clock sharp with a traditional flag ceremony Frederic the teacher takes attendance for each class a handful of students are just about always missing at this time of day nevertheless school begins as planned with the national anthem [Music] [Music] [Music] as usual Ryan misses it the 12 year old has been walking for over two hours all alone sometimes someone on a motorbike is nice enough to let him ride along for a bit and that saves them a lot of time but not today no one with a free space as driven by I know I'm definitely too late I always try to be on time okay even when I hurry class has usually already begun when I get there [Music] he gets to school at 8:45 Ryan has missed the first class not for the first time this week and he's not the only one to miss it today in second grade the lesson is well underway and eight-year-old Srimati and his seven-year-old brother are there today the children's classes are math English social studies and science Filipino and local dialects but not all the children seem to be paying attention the exhausting climb up pumping has taken its toll you can recognize children from a debacle like jean-marie and Janelle immediately their inability to concentrate makes them stand out they're tired Megara casa by I have to give them special attention to make sure they participate [Music] there's a long break at 11:30 the school doesn't have a real cafeteria but a few mothers from the surrounding villages sell food in the pavilion there's a kind of doughnuts polenta eggs and chicken all for one to five pesos that's about 5 to 25 cents at that price even the poor children can sometimes buy something to accompany the rice they've brought with them Ryan and I B are in seventh grade in the afternoon they have history class they've been learning about the Second World War at home I be prepared a report about Spain's participation in the war the Philippines were a Spanish colony for centuries even today the influence of that time can be seen in the country's food culture and language [Music] as always i beez report is a success the 11 year old is a model student ib is an exception the kids with a long walk to school do worse in class than the others take Ryan I know he walks down from the mountain every day he's very intelligent but he can't concentrate and almost always misses the first class [Music] school ends at 3:30 the pavilion has transformed from an improvised cafeteria into a taxi stand many motorbike drivers from the region some of them the same age as the students are waiting in the hopes of earning the little extra money Joe Murray and Shannon are in luck another student from the coast has enough money for a motorbike taxi and takes them with her today the two boys don't have to climb back down pom pom Ryan has also found a ride a farmer going his way can take him along for part of the journey a rare stroke of luck [Music] [Music] most of the other children stay at school the grounds are open to everyone in the afternoon teenagers who live far apart from one another use the opportunity to play basketball together the national sport of the Philippines or just to spend time with their friends like IB game please my friends are here but um this is my only chance to be with them the droga getting a ride from the farmer saves ryan a whole lot of time over one hour on foot for a change the 12 year old does not dawdle on the way home as happens o often a storm is drawing near [Music] the weather can change suddenly in the Philippines thanks to the high humidity short heavy rain showers tend to be the rule even in the dry season [Music] this is no problem for most of the children the clouds often disperse as quickly as they've gathered but for IB it means even greater danger on her way home from school the routes the rocks the soil pumping is now even more slippery than usual [Music] I hate it when it has ring in addition climbing down is more difficult than climbing up [Music] i beez mother Ida dislikes the rain as much as her daughter her concern grows with each passing minute her fear that IB might slip a second time last time either managed to save her in the nick of time a couple bruises a couple scrapes luckily that was the extent of the damage ib was 8 years old then I always look for something to do when the weather is like this to distract myself otherwise all I do is think of IB and how she's hanging on to the roots I can't stand it at that very moment IB has reached the steepest part of pompon and the rain is getting stronger there's no one around to help her in an emergency [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the way home lasts longer than usual normally IB would be home by now at a certain point no shirt in need of mending could distract either anymore she must keep a lookout for her daughter [Music] what Ida would really like to do is embrace her daughter but she doesn't want Abby to notice how concerned she is ultimately tomorrow is another school day and so no exceptions can be made today ib has to do her homework but then thing I want to be a police officer and for criminals in jail one the school day comes to a close on top of the mountain - like every evening Ryan does his homework while eating dinner he's pretty tired but that doesn't keep the 12 year old from chasing his dreams [Music] my biggest wish is to have enough money someday to go to Manila Pokhara well collectivism my parents but it's really my biggest wish for one Hungary even before the Sun has completely disappeared behind the horizon eleven-year-old ivy goes to bed exhausted [Music] Ryan also goes to bed early like always [Music] the children prompt zamboanga they're not they they've got to get started again at the break of dawn starting along one of the world's most dangerous ways to school [Music]

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Channel: Free Documentary

Views: 434,412

Rating: 4.8849978 out of 5

Keywords: most dangerous ways to school, most dangerous ways to school documentary, most dangerous ways to school philippines, the most dangerous ways to school, the most dangerous ways to school documentary, school philippines, school way philippines, documentaries, documentary, free documentaries, free documentary, full documentaries, full documentary, philippines

Id: di_PKpeSmtY

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Length: 48min 6sec (2886 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 09 2019

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