“I was born in this house,” says Marites, aged 36, waving her arm around a space of around two metres by four metres in the barangay of Pinyahan, Quezon City, Metro Manila. “When my mother and father came here in 1969, there were 12 families. Now there are 22. First we could not afford a bigger house, and later there was no land left anyway.”

Marites is feeding her new baby, Marvin, just three weeks old, under a shelf containing his white booties, white nappies, and little white gloves. He is the seventh child, and all of them live in this space with Marites and her husband.

She says little has changed in the house since she was born, except that a few years ago they were able to replace the dirt floor with cement. That floor is spotless, as are the baby’s things. They have a shelf of battered stuffed toys, each one wrapped in plastic to keep it clean.

It almost looks like fun, but the constant challenge of making eight square metres into a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room and a place to sleep while raising seven children is not fun at all. At night, even with the adults in hammocks over the children’s heads, there is no room to move.

“We are like sardines in a tin can,” says 10 year old Edmond, shaking his head. It makes the other children laugh, but they agree.

* * *

Metro Manila is not just a city; it is thirteen cities, once separated by farmland and rural roads, that swelled a little more each year with people until they ran into each other. Quezon is one of these cities, home to over 2.6 million people. Some of Quezon’s residents were born here; others were driven here by harsh rural conditions over the last three decades. One third of them are under 15.

Marites’ mother says that Quezon was very different when they arrived.

“There were still trees here and bamboo, it was a swamp.”

They believed, like many, that if they stayed on vacant land for long enough they would receive deeds of ownership. However most of the land they settled belonged to private landowners, who understandably were not going to relinquish their increasingly valuable city lots for free.

World Vision first joined with the Pinyahan community over 20 years ago in what was to become a model project for other urban work worldwide. In this environment, it was important for the slumdwellers to make their own decisions and run their own programmes if Pinyahan was to become a better place to live.

World Vision acted as a mediator between the community and government, landowners, banks and lawyers, but the achievements were driven by community representatives.

“Our dream was to have our own land,” says Felino Tamayo, chairman of the local development committee, “and now it has become a reality.”

* * *

Marites became involved with World Vision in 2004 when she joined as a volunteer leader for a child protection committee. Around the time that her children were sponsored, she learned that she and her neighbours were to be evicted and their tiny houses demolished.

“But because the families were members of the local community association,” she says, “we were able to fight. We’ve had ongoing negotiation with the landowner who has let us stay while we look for alternatives.”

In the meantime, World Vision negotiated a very good price on a large block of land in Caloocan, around 45 minutes away, and lent families like Marites’ enough money each to buy a small part of it. Their house there, which is almost finished, is still not large by many standards, but it is at least five times the size of this one.

The amount they now need to pay back, over eight years, is 1541 pesos a month.

“It’s affordable,” says Marites confidently. “When we both work we earn around 350 pesos a day. It’s easy to save 50 of that.”

“It is impossible to live here any more. I am so happy we are moving. The thing that makes me the happiest is that we will have more than one room. The children can have their own space.”

With just one month before they move, all the children are very excited about their new life.

“The new house is so beautiful and big,” says Melanie, aged 8. “I can’t wait to live there.”

All Marites’ children, apart from the two youngest, are now at school. She believes things can be different for them; both she and her husband work hard towards this goal.

Her husband rides a three-wheel taxi that they bought through a community savings scheme introduced by World Vision. Not only does this guarantee the family an income, but it will also make it easier to stay close to the rest of the family when they move.

Marites usually earns money as a beautician. Her certificate, which she took with support from the village and World Vision, is displayed proudly on the wall. But right now she has her hands full with baby Marvin.

“I’m so glad my children will grow up there and not here,” she says, beaming with hope.