For many rural communities, access to educational books and supplementary learning material for school-attending children is not always easy. Books are expensive and local schools and libraries have limited supply to answer the young ones’ growing hunger for learning. But, over the last few months our community-based partners in the Philippines have found new ways to support primary education. Take a look!
New Ways to Support Primary Education
With the support of Human Development Facilitators (HDFs) from Outreach Philippines Incorporated (OPI), community-based organizations from two different communities gained access to more than 5,000 books. They gathered them from different Philippines-based bookstores. This includes textbooks, supplementary learning materials, and reference guides. All are invaluable resources for bolstering local students’ learning. This is specially true during times when home-based learning is the go-to avenue for teaching and learning.
The community-based organizations and their leaders then handed over the books to the primary schools in their communities. This ensured the books landed in the hands of those who needed it most. They did this during ceremonies in their respective communities, with all relevant stakeholders present. The ceremony’s response ranged from village captains appreciating the contribution, to school principals grateful for the powerful resource.
A Strengthened Community
What is perhaps the most significant in this whole story is that the attainment and distribution of the books strengthened our community partners’ confidence in successfully alleviating their communities’ challenges. This is what Elvis, the practitioner supporting these community-based organizations, shared:
“I could see the confidence in the leaders’ faces; Their ear- to-ear smiles proved their excitement and confidence when they updated the Village Captain, hearing them say that everything is possible even in these hard times.”
We’re not sure what the word is to describe how impressed we are, but we bet we could find it somewhere in one of those books!
How to Help
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Getting an education demands more than good attendance. See how other issues are being addressed through Outreach’s process of community-led development.
