Send 200 Filipino kids to better daycare centers

Every little bit helps.

In May 2018, we at Haligi ng Bata, Inc. (HBI) sat down to conceptualize our first crowdfunding initiative. As we explored potential development projects, we realized it should be something that embodies our organization’s core values.

At our very core, we believe that there are no “small” projects. Every development project – regardless of size, budget, and scope – has the potential to make a valuable difference in a poor child’s life.

Public Daycare Centers: Underfunded and "Just a Play School"

In the Philippines, local community governments (or barangays) fund public daycare centers. Richer communities are more likely to have good daycare facilities.

In the poor and far-flung communities of Sudipen, Santol, and Balaoan where at least 80% of the population live below the poverty line, public daycare centers are easy to overlook and thus, are underfunded. The La Union parents shared with us their personal stories of public community daycare centers that their children had to make do with.

Annabelle Flores, an HBI community leader with five children, shared that the public daycare center in their barangay "was so poorly ventilated, children usually escape from class to go home." Melvin Mingaracal, another HBI volunteer, recalled how her two sons went to a "daycare center that can be mistaken for a stockroom instead of a classroom."

Mary Jane Apulog, a farmer and a single mother to two children, confessed that the daycare center her kids went to was so poorly equipped that they "cannot read or write that well when they started elementary school."

It also doesn't help that public daycares are usually regarded as more of a play school, instead of institutions that provide early childhood education and development.

According to Mrs. Lita Bogtong, the daycare teacher at Bay-o Daycare Center, "Sometimes, parents ask me if they can also leave their babies and toddlers in the daycare center. They think we're baby-sitters or 'yayas'. I don't think they know or see the importance of daycare learning – but I can't blame them for thinking that way because we can't really offer a lot of stimulating activities for their children."

HBI has been active in the La Union province since 1996. In over 20 years, we and our donors have supported approximately 10,000 of La Union's most indigent children with their education and health needs. Along with this, we also implemented capacity building, livelihood, and skills programs to help the children’s families.

 Our programs cover four key areas:

• School support for students - providing students with all their needed school supplies & needs
• Health – implementing supplemental feeding programs, providing hygiene training and supplies for the children and the schools’ clinics
• School Improvement – providing new classrooms, books, and multimedia learning materials
• Livelihood – establishing joint livelihood projects with the students' parents so that they can sustain the positive changes in their schools with minimal state and nonprofit support.

But to be really honest, due to the high number of poor students and public elementary schools in La Union and our other project areas, we are also guilty of not prioritizing daycare centers. After all, we are just a small nonprofit grappling with limited resources. We cannot help everybody even if we want to.

Then it hit us – what we are about – and we realized that daycares may be small and easy to disregard, but the service they provide makes a lasting impact in the lives of their students, in the sense that a child's daycare experiences can affect how he or she feels about future schooling and further education. Viewed from this perspective, making public daycare centers better cannot and should not be considered a small project.

Status of the Daycare Center Improvement Project in Sudipen, Balaoan, and Santol, La Union

Months after the June 2018 GlobalGiving Accelerator Program, HBI has now finished re-validating the identified needs of the Tubaday Daycare Center, the Bay-O Daycare Center, the Basig Daycare Center, and the San Antonino Daycare Center.

The most common needs are drawing books, story books, and educational toys. Children are also in need of hygiene kits which they use in their daycare good grooming classes and school supplies for daily classroom activities such as practicing how to write and draw. These daycare centers also need audio-visual equipment like televisions and educational videos.

Mrs. Dominga Rimando, the daycare teacher at Tubaday Daycare Center, shares that the biggest challenge that public daycare centers face is the lack of materials and equipment to capture the attention of daycare learners. "Kids have very short attention spans," Dominga says. "Since we do not have toys that they can play with or videos to show them, I feel like most of the kids are not really happy to be in our daycare center. I can see it in their eyes – they’re bored and can't wait to go home."

While HBI is currently busy purchasing all the identified needed daycare materials and equipment, our La Union Community Worker and Foreman are now coordinating with volunteer parents to build bookshelves and/or children's tables for the four daycare centers. We have attached a short timeline and implementation schedule of the Daycare Improvement Project that you helped fund so that you know where we currently stand. We expect to deliver all needed materials and equipment for the four daycare centers by the second week of October 2018.  

A Thank You for Your Support and For Helping in Carrying the Load

The Daycare Improvement Project is a big responsibility and we thank you for choosing to support these remote daycare centers and their poor students. Through your help, four daycare centers are now on their way at having a fighting chance at imparting better daycare learning and experiences to 200 currently enrolled students and future children who would use their facilities.

We hope to reach more daycare centers in need and we welcome not only your continued support but also your suggestions and comments about what more can be done to improve public daycares in the Philippines.

For now though, there are books, toys, and art materials to be purchased, and there are bookshelves and tables to be made. We cannot wait to share with you on our next report the happy faces of the daycare students enjoying their new learning materials in their better daycare centers. Every little bit helps.

• A Timeline of the Daycare Improvement Project (PDF)