10/11/2026
My Great Escape: From Poverty to Opportunity
Poverty can feel like a locked door, passed from one generation to the next—but sometimes, one helping hand can open it. I was fortunate to escape that cycle; to me, breaking free still feels like a miracle.
I grew up in Manila, where we sometimes didn’t know where the next day’s rice would come from. A family friend helped me attend university in Canada, but I worked hard to stay there: walking through four feet of snow to a factory job paying CAD $2.50 an hour, working nights, and attending classes during the day.
After buying a used car, I lived in it during summers to save on rent. For three years, I maintained this routine and completed five years of university studies in three. Once I found a decent job, I sponsored my entire family to come to Canada.
That experience drives my commitment to helping people who are oppressed, overlooked, or denied opportunity. I know the hunger, exhaustion, and hope that hard work can change a life.
Yet after more than forty years abroad, my cousins—and now their grandchildren—remain trapped in poverty. It breaks my heart to see hardship passed from one generation to the next, knowing how profoundly one helping hand changed my own life.
