Send 200 Filipino kids to better daycare centers

The month of June is always a busy time in the Philippines because classes in public schools and public daycare centers begin in the first week. From May up to the second week of June, teachers, parents, and volunteer community members are already busy preparing their respective daycare centers and schools in welcoming a new batch of learners for the new school year. Creating fun, warm, equipped, and safe public classrooms is important to help students adjust to going back to school daily after a 2-month summer break. At the same time, classrooms should have a variety of educational spaces and activities that can pique the children's interests and encourage them to continuing going to school and participating in school activities. 

With these said, for this report we are focusing our attention to the daycare teachers and community heads from the four (4) original participants of HBI's Daycare Improvement Project and how they are preparing for the new school year now that they have the support of the project. 

Tubaday Daycare Center in Santol, La Union

On October 2018, the Tubaday Daycare Center received new books, new bookshelves, audio-video equipment and materials, instructional materials, new toys, and hygiene supplies from the donors of the Daycare Improvement Project. While these materials were quickly picked-up by the students, Tubaday's Daycare Teacher: Teacher Dominga, said that with the new school year starting, the materials and equipment will be fully integrated in their daily classes.

"We have to spread out the activities and make learning fun for the children for 6 hours a day from Monday to Friday. So for the first hour, we will have icebreakers like short sing and dance class using the videos and television from the project; the second hour will be an art and writing practice class where we will use the instructional materials from the donors; the third hour is a free playtime where children can pick up any toy they want and play together; the fourth hour is for the children's meals and lessons on hygiene and good grooming; the last hour is a story-telling session."

The Tubaday Community Leader, Mr. Alfredo, said that without the support of the Daycare Improvement Project funded through the GlobalGiving platform, daycare activities will be very limited. "One of my children attended this daycare center and there weren't a lot to do apart from trying to practice writing the alphabet and playing with a few toys that were already discarded by the nearest elementary school. It's good that our small daycare center can provide our community's children with fun and different lessons daily."

A total of approximately 48 students are enrolled in the Tubaday Daycare Center as of May 30, 2019. With enrolment still on-going, the daycare teacher expects additional children to be signed up to daycare by their parents in the coming weeks. 

Bay-O Daycare Center in Santol, La Union

Located in a nearby mountain range to Tubaday Daycare Center is the Bay-O Daycare Center. The community's leader, Mr. Paciano, recalls requesting the Santol Municipality's Social Welfare Office to send in support to their daycare center which has very limited educational materials last June 2018. The Municipal Office then informed HBI about the plight of the Bay-O Daycare Center which resulted to their identification and inclusion in the Daycare Improvement Project.

Mr. Paciano and the daycare center's teacher, Teacher Lita, were very happy for their students when they received similar educational and classroom improvement packages last October 2018. Teacher Lita added that "when the children first saw the building block toys, they didn't know how it worked. Eventually they figured it out and have been creating things from houses to cars to flowers. The way they gravitated towards these new learning materials made it easy for me to teach them and get them engaged daily."

This coming new school year, Mr. Paciano and some volunteer parents are building new shelves to store and safekeep the school's new supplies and audio-video equipment. Parents are also very happy that even if they are located in a hard-to-reach mountain area, their children can still take advantage of learning using more advanced methods like film showings and video read-alongs. "Services like these," according to Teacher Lita, "are usually just available in the lowland and in private schools that are expensive. Because of the support of the project's donors, even our poor Bay-O children are going to be learning in a more high-tech way."

A total of 37 students have signed up for the Bay-O Daycare Center for the June 2019 to March 2020 period. As enrolment will be on-going until September 2019, Bay-O Daycare's teacher is expecting a few more children to enrol and join their fun and engaging classes.

Antonino Daycare Center in Balaoan, La Union

While the Antonino Daycare Center is not as remote as the Bay-O and Tubaday Daycare Centers, they also encountered problems such as lack of teaching and educational materials due to the high number of students and enrollees. For the coming school year, a total of 55 children have already enrolled in the daycare center and while this was a problem before since at best they could only accommodate a maximum of 35 learners, this is no longer an issue now according to their daycare teacher, Teacher Mela, thanks to the new school materials and equipment provided by the Daycare Improvement Project and its donors.

"Before, we don't have enough books and toys that we can let the students use, so we had to limit the number of enrollees. Of course, we can't not accept students so we always go beyond the 35-children limit. Now though, we have a new television, new videos to show the children, new books, and new toys from the project, we are no longer that worried about being unable to provide quality daycare learning for all our students."

The community's leader, Mr. Concepcion, echoed Teacher Mela's sentiments. "Now we encourage the parents to enroll their children in our daycare. Before the project, we had to apologize and explain to parents why we cannot accommodate the children in the daycare center. This project is really a big help to us here in the Antonino Community."

Basig Daycare Center in Sudipen, La Union

The Basig Daycare Center stood out from the collective because apart from receiving educational and learning materials and equipment, they also received infrastructure support to repair and improve the daycare center. Whereas before it looked like a make-shift children's activity center, now it looks more like a classroom adorned with new books, new toys, new tables and chairs, and new audio-video equipment.

Basig Daycare's Teacher, Teacher Fema, shares that this year is her least problematic year in terms of preparing the daycare center for her students. "Before, I had to use my own limited financial resources just so the daycare center will have new lights or school supplies like pad papers and pencils. I also ask parents to donate but since they are also struggling financially, we don't really have enough to make improvements possible. It's so different now because the classroom is newly-refurbished and we have a lot of school materials and equipment for the children."

Because of the improvements made possible by the project's donors, the Basig Daycare Center is now a safe and conducive place for young minds to learn, socialize, and experience what school feels like. For this school year, the Basig Daycare Center will welcome 33 new learners between the ages of 3 to 5 years old. As with the other daycare centers aided by the project, more children are expected to join the class as the enrolment period continues.

Our continued thanks for your support

As always, we would like to sincerely thank all the donors and advocates who continue supporting the Daycare Improvement Project. We urge you to send in any questions or concerns you have about the project and we look forward to speaking with you about them. On HBI's end, we are also quite excited to be meeting GlobalGiving's representative this coming August 2019 as she plans on visiting the daycare centers aided by the project. We hope that these planned visits happen so that the daycare teachers and students can meet one of the people who made the improvements possible.

No Longer Resembling a Chicken Coop: The Basig Daycare Center 

Among the four public daycare centers of the Daycare Improvement Project, it is the Basig Daycare Center in Sudipen, La Union that needed the most help. Apart from the lack of educational materials, toys, and instructional materials, it needed major building renovations ranging from simple classroom repainting to intricate building wiring so that the daycare center will finally have electricity.

Complicating matters is the daycare center's remote mountainous location. Although accessible by a 4x4 vehicle or a motorcycle, the mountain roads leading to the Basig Community are prone to landslides and due to the effects of 2018's Typhoon Mangkhut, the community roads were closed for repairs for approximately two months. This delayed the delivery of daycare and building repair materials since the community can only be reached by foot while road works were on-going.

Finally on the last week of November 2018, community roads were re-opened and materials were finally delivered to start the rehabilitation of the Basig Daycare Center. The students' parents volunteered their time to improve the daycare center, while the Basig Community Officials pitched in to get a skilled electrician to supervise building wiring. Day in, day out, community volunteers repainted the building, refurbished classroom chairs & tables, installed electrical outlets and lights, and replaced broken roofs, windows and doors, among others. To not disrupt classes, the daycare learners used a classroom in a nearby public elementary school while repair works were on-going.

By the second week of December 2018, the newly-rehabilitated Basig Daycare Center was ready to receive new books, instructional materials, educational toys, students' hygiene kits, and audio-visual equipment. With the help of the Sudipen Municipal Government, HBI delivered all identified needed materials and equipment in time for the re-opening of daycare classes on January 2019.

The support that you, our donors, made possible brought beaming smiles to the daycare's 50 students.The moms are very happy that their children are now studying in a proper and well-equipped daycare center that "no longer looks like a chicken coop or a dark stockroom". According to Mrs. Emma Mostoles of the Sudipen Municipal Social Welfare Office, "the kids and parents of Basig are very happy for the support they received from the GlobalGiving donors. We hope you can help more daycare centers like us in the near future." 

Exceeding Funding Goals Means Reaching More Public Daycare Centers and Students in Need

As we have mentioned in our previous report, the Daycare Improvement Project has already exceeded its initial funding requirement of US$ 5,000 and is now nearing the US$ 7,500 mark in donations. Exceeding funding goals through the support of our donors means that we can now reach more needy public daycare centers and students in the La Union Province.

One of the new daycare centers that the project has supported is the Cabalitocan Daycare Center in Luna, La Union. Through your continued support, the daycare center has been provided with additional instructional and learning materials, while its 30 learners were provided with school supplies and hygiene kits. In the coming months, we are planning on extending support to another daycare center: the Pitpitac Daycare Center in Luna, La Union which has approximately 31 students.  

Apart from monetary donations, the Daycare Improvement Project also recently received gifts in kind from SM North Edsa - a popular local shopping mall. After seeing our website and reading about the Daycare Improvement Project in our GlobalGiving Page, they decided to donate 900 toys that can be distributed to the target daycare centers and to other needy schools and daycares. HBI is going to be distributing these toys in the coming months as well. You will read all about this in our next report!

Our Most Heartfelt Thanks to Our Donors and Advocates

As always, we cannot thank our project's donors and advocates enough for the continued support they have extended to the Daycare Improvement Project. Your help matters to the children and we are going to continue doing our very best work so that we can help and improve more daycare centers in the future.