Janet Jensen

About 200 families call Cavite City Cemetery home and most depend on the neighboring city dump to scrape out livelihoods. World Vision helped relocate many of the poverty stricken families to the more pristine countryside. But two years later, without jobs, most returned to the shanty town built among the graves.  About 200 families exchange free rent for keeping the tombs clean. Daily they hunt for recyclable bottles, plastic, metal and the occasional treasure that will help provide their families food and clothing.  

Where the city dump ends Cavite City Cemetery begins--as does the shanty town that is built among the graves.

Arminda Hilario, left, washes one of two tombs that rest within the walls of her shanty home. Her husband's fishing nets sit outside the house where Hilario's neighbors congregate.  About 200 families live near or among the graves in Cavite City Cemetery.  Although the conditions are grim based on U.S. standards, for the poor in the Philippines free rent, a neighboring dump and Manila Bay offer the promise for a livable income.

Children play tag.

A boy walks through the trash that forms the Cavite City dump about 20 miles south of Manila in the Philippines. 

Jeanelyn Roda, 14, right, passes a late afternoon listening to a radio with friend Maricel Bacale, 15, from on top a tombstone in the Cavite City Cemetery.

A tombstone provides a dog a resting place. 

Loretto Meletante Jr., 14, carries a mature piece of bamboo he harvested from the mountain --an area about two miles from the center of Maragondon.  Many families in Maragondon depend on bamboo for their livelihoods.  Due to his family's poverty, Meletante only attended the first grade.  He sells large bamboo pieces in town for about two dollars a piece.

Elpie Sara, right, on floor, bundles bamboo skewer sticks that her husband Marcelo Sara sells in Manila to support their family.  The couple shares a one-room 12 by 15 foot shanty with their eight children in Maragondon Philippines. Within two weeks the family moved into a new home they built with help from World Vision and Habitat for Humanity volunteers.

World Vision's Chacky Nakashima, from Japan, uses Sarah Soon-Young's (from Korea) head as a desk to sign a bible these volunteers will present to home-owner Salome Caspillo. Nena Malimban a friend of Salome's and a local volunteer looks on.

On the final day of building, Elpie, foreground, and Marcelo, background, work on their new home.  The Sara's home was one of three homes in Isaiah Ville built primarily with help from World Vision volunteers.

Marcelo Sara, right top, works with his wife Elpie Sara, on their 16-by-20 foot cinder block home.  With help from World Vision and Habitat for Humanity volunteers, the Saras built a new two-bedroom home replacing their one-room shanty.  About 14,000 volunteers from 33 countries helped build 293 houses over five days in the Philippines during Habitat for Humanity's 16th annual Jimmy Carter Work Project.

Elpie Sara, center, reaches out to shake hands with former president Jimmy Carter, left, during the final day of construction of their new home. After working long days in the hot Filipino sun Carter visited each of the 130 houses in Isaiah Ville to insure construction was on schedule.  

Rina Sara, 9, looks through the window of her new 2-bedroom home, while her sister Leonor, 12, exits and sister-in-law Jessica Fernandez enters.  Rina is one of two children in the Sara home who is sponsored by World Vision.  Sponsored children receive school uniforms and supplies as well as aid with tuition.

Six days after the first cinder blocks were laid, a row of freshly painted pastel houses line a street in Isaiah Ville.