IN A cold sidewalk floor of an old building, homeless individuals rest and this is not an unusual sight in Davao City.

Tattered clothes, muddled hair, peculiar smell, homeless, and hungry. Each day is a battle for them and every night is a fearful time to think on how to survive again the next day.

Most people look at these homeless individuals with pity but only few people would really take action and somehow make a difference like Terrence Zabala, a 28-year-old barber, who dedicated to spend all his Wednesdays serving the homeless individuals in the city.

“Every day-off nako, kung wala koy bookings, nagasuroy ko sa mga dalan para manggupit og mga homeless (Every week, during my day-off, I roam around the city to offer free haircut for the homeless),” he said in an interview with SunStar Davao.

Terrence is a barber by profession and he said that it is the only thing he knows he is good at and he wants to share his skills to people who cannot even afford to have their hair cut. By simply doing this, Terrence said he is giving back to God whatever that he has right now.

When he was still a child, he also lived on the streets. He started wandering the streets just to get away from his abusive father. At a very young age, he came to understand that life is hard, definitely not a place for the weak and the meek. So he started searching for peers that could help him be strong but he ended up addicted to illegal drugs.

In a cold sidewalk floor of an old building, Terrence, while resting, everything that happened to him flashed before his eyes. He is starting to be the exact reflection of a father he once hated and starting to live a life exactly like him. It is not the kind of life that he wanted. At that moment, he knew that he needs to correct all his wrongdoings because he still has a home – his mother and siblings.

In 2007, Terrence learned to cut, dress, groom, style, and shave hair. So he worked as a barber to buy his box of hairdressing tools and started his advocacy last August 2018.

Other than haircut, Terrence is also giving the homeless individuals food from his own pocket. He said that what he is doing cannot equal to what God has been doing in his life, starting from the moment that God turned his life 180 degrees.

At present, Terrence is continually doing his advocacy, encouraging others to make a positive difference even in simple ways. Even homeless individuals need to feel good about their hair.

“Ang akong ginahimo para sa Ginoo, para sa Iya gyud ug sa akong pamilya. Tao pud na sila nga nanginahanglan ug pagtagad (What I have been doing is for God, this is really for Him and my family. Those homeless individuals are also humans who needed our attention),” he said.