Press release for back-to-school project

Project launched to help poor preschool children go to school

14 June 2009, Quezon City – The month of June in the country signifies the start of the school year. But for many underprivileged preschool children in the metropolis like Muntinlupa, their education will take a backseat for necessities such as food and rent (shelter). This situation contributes to the spinning of the poverty cycle.

Send-a-Child-to-School project was launched to address the formal education needs of 40 disadvantaged children, initially, from an urban poor community in Muntinlupa. Send-a-Child-to-School is spearheaded by Ime Aznar in partnership with Akap Bata Sectoral Organization, under its Early Childhood Care and Development Program. The program focuses on curriculum and materials development, training, repairs and maintenance of day care centers, and nutrition.

“As a resident of the city and a mother to a four-year-old boy, the difference between my own child and those children I see out on the streets are depressingly stark. There must be something we can do aside from feel bad,” Aznar says. “If we are able to help one child, we would have made a difference in the life of one child. And that is a lot better than not making any difference at all,” she adds.

Akap Bata has identified Sikatvill, Muntinlupa as one of its priority communities. Sixty percent of the kids in the local Akap Bata daycare center are malnourished and have parents who work as factory workers in the city.

For its initial phase, Send-a-Child-to-School calls on people to help Sikatvill, Muntinlupa preschool children in four ways: (1) donate items like school supplies, clothes, shoes, bags, storybooks, art materials, and nutritious food items like milk during the school year; (2) volunteer to help in the project; (3) spread the word to your friends and contacts; (4) donate money for the feeding program of the project which entails providing nutritious food to the kids every day. Scheduled drop-off points for donations and other details can be found on isangbata.blogspot.com.

Studies show that early childhood development leads to important outcomes. The Infant Health Development Program (IHDP), for one, showed that children exposed to the program at a longer period had higher intelligence quotient (IQ) vis-à-vis children who had a shorter exposure period to the program. IHDP is a research of Child Trends, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center in Washington, DC, USA that conducts studies on children at all stages of development.

In the Philippine setting, Akap Bata (in its website) states that 64 percent of Filipino children do not experience or attend pre schools, daycare centers and other non-formal preparatory education despite a law requiring all barangays to operate at least one daycare center.