Serve Like a Superhero: Season 3, Episode 6
A bite from a radioactive spider gave super-abilities to Peter Parker, an ordinary teenager from Queens, New York. But having been raised by his aunt and uncle to have compassion for the people around him, he realized that these powers could be used for the good of his neighbourhood.
One of Peter Parker’s famous quotes is: “Not everybody may be meant to make a difference. But for me, the choice to live an ordinary life is no longer an option.” This is how he became the friendly neighbourhood Spiderman – by using his compassion and abilities to make a difference. In this episode, we see ordinary people using their compassion and abilities to do extraordinary things for THEIR neighbourhoods, caring for both the people and the place.
We meet the Core Team of Serve the City Manila, who care about both the poverty and the environmental degradation in which their neighbours live… and come up with creative ways to address these problems. We also see how Serve the City volunteers in Luxembourg, Lisbon, and Ulan Bataar care about people through environmental initiatives. Transforming neighbourhoods is a challenge… but as Spider-Man says: “Anyone can win a fight when the odds are easy! It’s when the going’s tough, when there seems to be no chance – that’s when it counts.”
Listen to this episode here:
We also found a couple of stories about other people around the world who have become Spider-Man to clean up their neighbourhoods — you can see these stories at the bottom of this post!
In October 2024, a team from Serve the City International came to Manila in the Philippines to do some training of the Serve the City Core Team. The team was mostly made up of pastors working in disadvantaged areas of Metro Manila who wanted to see transformation in their neighbourhoods.
Prior to the training, the team had done some food outreach projects with single parent families in their neighbourhoods. In the pictures you can see Celso Manangan, the City Leader of STC Manila handing out food to indigent children. You can also see, in the second picture, how grateful these children were to receive the food. Mario, one of the pastors, said: “I was touched by these children because of this food that we gave to them. If you can see their happiness, you would cry.”
The STCi team that came included Rene Mally, STC board member (far left, seated next to Celso and his wife), who also led a workshop on Environmental Volunteering that turned out to be quite significant. Also present (left to right), were Hazel Ebenezer (STC Asia/Pacific Coordinator), Daniel Kim (STC CFO), Shannon Deal (City Trainer and Serving Stories producer) and Carlton Deal (STC founder and CEO), as well as a visiting friend from Indonesia.
For three days, the Core Team interacted with training from the STCi members and discussed the best ways to help the people of their neighbourhoods, both in the poverty and the environmental conditions they face. Though Celso had experience with Serve the City in Geneva, it was important for the team to discover how best to encourage volunteering in their own context. (At right, Celso addresses the group.)
One of the environmental topics was the problem of plastic pollution. The Pasig River, which you can see here, is one of seven rivers in the Philippines which together are responsible for 25% of plastic waste in the oceans.
A youth pastor named Joel (second from right), had the idea of letting children and youth in their neighbourhoods trade plastic they collected for food, thus cleaning up the environment while giving them the dignity of trading on their work. Randy (in red) and Patrick (in black), who run a sports program together at another church, thought that the young people they worked with could also volunteer with this project. Many other ideas, including ways to include educational opportunities for the kids, were also suggested.
This project is now under development by STC Manila, who are interacting with government and other agencies to recycle the plastics collected by young people in these neighbourhoods, and working to create the infrastructure to run the project.
Another project that was initiated as a result of ideas from the consultation was a tree planting project, an idea of Celso’s (he is at far right). STC Manila acquired 1000 seedling trees from the Ministry of the Environment and got people in the target neighbourhoods to plant them in their yards and vacant lots. Some of the trees were fruit trees and others were trees that would grow quickly and could be cut down for wood in a few years; but for now they will provide shade and fresh air. Serve the City also provided vegetable plants for people to grow.
Serve the City Philippines knows it’s cool to be kind! As they understand the connections between people and place in their neighbourhoods, we expect to see much transformation in the future!
We talked again to Nicolas Duprey, City Leader of STC Luxembourg (centre) about the impact of cleanliness (or lack thereof) on vulnerable people. He told us that depression decreased 70% for people in poverty when their neighbourhoods were cleaned.
If you want to hear more about environmental initiatives in Luxembourg, listen to Environment: Gotta Clean Up This City!
Can you tell the volunteers from the “beneficiaries”? At our last Serving Stories Live, Austin Silva Mota from Lisbon, Portugal told a story of people from a homeless shelter and volunteers making their neighbourhood more beautiful, side by side.
Javkhaa Ganbaatar, leader of STC Mongolia shared with us another story about a tree planting initiative that they undertake twice a year. In Ulaan Baatar, planting trees is very important to prevent overgrazed pasturelands from becoming deserts.
The trees are bought from the national park service through donations, and the national park rangers care for them after they are planted. Javkhaa says it’s a fun day for the whole family!
We found these cool stories about two different guys in two different countries who dress up as Spiderman to do environmental projects! The first guy is in Indonesia and in fact dresses up specifically to deal with plastic pollution! Read the story HERE. The second guy, in Nigeria, is featured in this clip:
