Views from a Teacher

As a resident of Manggahan and para-teacher of the Manggahan Daycare Center, I have seen and experienced the growth not only of my students but also of their parents and our learning center.

As you can see, the structure of our learning center is not much to look at. It looks more or less the same as when we started. Only a few pieces of the old, rusty, galvanized iron roofing was left by previous typhoons. We were able to replace it with those thick plastic sheets to protect us from the weather. Our center still have no walls, only plastic sheets to shade us from the sun. We cannot afford to build walls. Once, we were able to solicit building materials from a charitable institution. However, the security guard of the company that owns this lot, did not allow us to bring the materials into the community. We pleaded with him and later with the company officials but they refused. When it rains, we have a lot of leaks from our roof. The strong typhoon last year scattered and soaked everything, ripped out some of our roofing and took away most of our tables and chairs. In spite of these set backs, we started anew with what we had left.

This is a new school year, June 2007 to March 2008. We will have 21 preparatory school and 19 kindergarten enrollees. Last school year we had 58 enrollees, 32 of whom finished the school year. We are proud that all 19 preparatory level graduates last school year passed the public school admission examination, at least nine (9) of whom were classified and admitted into the first five academically advanced sections. As a teacher of this pre-school, I am overjoyed of helping them in their achievement.

What happened to the remainder of the students last year? A hyperactive student accidentally pushed me off balance, I fell and literally tore off one of my fingernails. I cried. That story aside, last year was painful for all us. The drop-out rate is our highest so far, we lost twenty-six students. Perhaps I can say that we lost them because of poverty. Last year seemed to be a bad year, financially, for all of us. Two major typhoons hit us hard but we perservered. Majority of the residents of our community had difficulty in finding jobs. As you may know, our community's residents are mostly laborers, vendors and contractual workers doing odd jobs. Thus, many families moved out last year. Perhaps they moved into another urban poor community that is nearer their source of income. I learned some moved back to their provinces. I also know that at least five of my students contracted a contagious disease, "primary complex" as I recall, and were not allowed by their doctors to go back to school.

The Antipolo Seminary Foundation has significantly contributed to our achievements. They have been helping us since 2004. They extended financial support for our operation, provided us with trainings, supported our supplemental feeding and last year gave our students school supplies. The children last year were overjoyed when the school supplies donated by the Children's Hour and the ASF were distributed. Given their young age, it was perhaps the first time they could own a bag, a notebook and a pencil. They felt proud -- and you can see it in their disposition, of wearing their bags and holding their own pencils. The parents, on the other hand, were also happy. They were relieved of not having to divert their meager resources to buy the school supplies. For some of them, it meant money saved for another few meals for their family.

The foundation taught us, the teachers and parents, how to plan and cook low-cost but nutritious meals. This we used for the supplemental feeding. The parents themselves made menu plans, distribute tasks among themselves and made schedules. Were they able to apply their learnings on nutrition and food preparation at home? Honestly, I am not sure whether all the parents were able to apply it at home regularly. Though the recipes are low-cost, some families are barely able to purchase rice. Sometimes, some families have no choice but to consider having a viand optional. Yes, we realize that this affects the continuity and effectiveness of the nutrition campaign for our students. But, this reality is beyond our or the any groups' ability to influence. Perhaps, if more jobs or income generating opportunities are available to the people, we can realize our goal.

The foundation helped us develop a bookeeping system that we can actually follow. It entails recording our income and expenses in detail and keeping the receipts on file. We also learned how to document important points raised in our meetings. Our parents also attended the foundation's leadership and planning training activities. Our learnings from these we apply not only to pre-school activities but also to the larger concerns of our neighborhood organization.

On our own, we were able to organize last year activities focusing on sanitation and proper hygiene and a symposium on "violence against women."

What challenges will we face this year? This year we are in a situation that is similar to situations we find ourselves after a strong typhoon. We need to sustain our learning center's operations, in spite of our meager resources, in spite of our losses, for the sake of our students this and the coming years. Our school without walls and its leaky roof signifies hope to residents of our community. We have ourselves, our experiences and learnings. With some assistance from other groups on specific concerns, we can keep this hope burning.