My name is George Verzosa, I come from Calbayog City (Southern part of the Philippines). I have never completed my college education because my parents could not afford to send me and my siblings to school. I migrated to Manila to find work and I worked in a sack factory as a machine operator under a contractual agency. I worked with the minimum salary, while some of my co-workers were below the minimum wage. When I had overtime hours and received extra pay, I sent it to my relatives and family way back in my province.

We were required to work rapidly because we had a “quota” to achieve and they wanted surplus production. When we did not meet the quota required for the day, it was deducted from our salary. However, when we exceeded the production quota, there was no compensation.

In 2014, my work became more precarious. I worked only three to four days a week.  It was a “no work, no pay” policy, so the days I had no work, I had no income. It was extremely difficult for me to help my family and even to support my own needs, I was renting an apartment too.

The young woman worker leaves home at four o’clock in the morning every day. She has to cross the whole city to get to work. She travels around two hours by bus, and then she has to walk almost half an hour to reach the community where she teaches children of low-income families. The neighborhood where she works is poor, marginalized, and the rates of violence are high.

Women have been raped on the stretch of road she has to walk through, and the buses she uses to get to and leave that place are those which, according national statistics, register the most armed attacks and assaults, as well as the most accidents caused by the drivers themselves.

She has to make the same trip in the other direction to go home, but this time, in even worse conditions: in buses that are overcrowded, progressing very slowly in long lines of cars driving through the city.

You may know the story of a king of ancient times. He wanted to know how his people would react when faced with a challenge or obstacle. Therefore, the king placed a huge rock (boulder) on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none of them did anything about getting the stone out of the way.

Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying on the road where the huge rock had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway.

Here in this story, the peasant noticed the obstacle or challenge (the huge rock), he did not walk simply around the obstacle, did not blame the king, did not run away from the obstacle but pushed the rock to the side of the road after so many efforts and finally got the gold coins. This story could be taken as a classical example of how a challenge can provide an opportunity to improve our working and living conditions.