Literacy and EcoKids Club Projects in Dugong, Mlang, North Cotabato

I came in contact with Dugong Elementary School when we started the basic literacy project in 2003. Dugong is a village of Mlang, North Cotabato which is located on the Southern island of Mindanao, Philippines. The pupils were once victims of armed conflict. Moslem, Christian, and indigenous children attend classes in this school. During my first visit, I saw that new school buildings are needed to provide the pupils a place conducive for learning. There was no school stage to hold graduation excercises or other events, no proper playground, no basic tools such as books and other school paraphernalia to aid the school teachers.

 I met a group of young, dedicated, and very inspiring team of faculty members under the leadership of Mr. Cyrel Defensor, the principal of Dugong Elementary School. They asked me to help them sponsor a group of poor but hardworking pupils and perhaps, some financial support to help them build school rooms. My husband and I agreed to contribute for the building of the classroom. They enthusiastically shared with me their many plans. I decided to look for more support for the school. It is very fortunate that Damayang Pilipino sa Nederland agreed to support the children.

Supporting the children does not cost much. With assistance from Wilde Ganzen and other donors, Damayan provides support to buy school supplies, uniforms, and to pay other school fees not more than Euro 25 per pupil. To encourage foreign donors to continue supporting the pupils, the barangay local government unit agreed that they will also sponsor a child. So, the one for one approach was born- that is for every child sponsored by Damayan, the local government unit will also sponsor one.

We also agreed that we should encourage the pupils to become members of the EcoKids Club where they have to maintain vegetable gardens in the school.

That was three years ago. I visited Dugong Elementary School again in 2006 and I was so amazed to see the transformation of the school not only in the surroundings and the building but also in the pupils and the teachers. New classrooms and a school stage were constructed. There were more flowers. The pupils look happier and the teachers are more self-confident while showing to me the improvements they made. Due to their remarkable achievements, it is easier now for the teachers to secure funding to construct new classrooms from the municipal and provincial offices.

Dugong started a school vegetable garden using the vacant lot at the back of the school. It is actually an integrated farm. They grow their own seedlings, they have a fishpond, small corn fields and lots of vegetables. What really surprised me is that Dugong did not even ask any financial support from Damayan to start the garden.

There are many undernourished children in the school, so the teachers use the vegetables in their school feeding program. They also sell some vegetables and the income they use for buying ingredients and other things they need in the school. The teachers plan to encourage every children to maintain a school garden in their homes for their own consumption and perhaps, by selling some of the vegetables, the garden can help augment family income.

Mr. Cyrel Defensor explaining to Grace Cabactulan (Habagat Netherlands), Jean Metilla (Association of Bansalenos Worldwide Germany), and me how they started the school garden.

This picture was taken last October 2008 when I visited Dugong again. With me were Efrain Jeminez of Federacion Zacatecanos (Mexico-USA), and Zeni Acaba (Association of Bansalenos Worldwide Australia).

The others in the picture are members of the local government unit, parents, and teachers of Dugong Elementary School.

The teachers in Dugong Elementary School take their vocation seriously. As a guiding principle, they follow this Universal Rights of Every Child.

Dugong is very lucky to receive refurbished computers and laptops from Computers for Development (Netherlands). Wimler Foundation, my family's private foundation, facilitated the shipment of the computers. In less than a week, the teachers made the computers usable for teachers, pupils, and the local government unit.
The school's ambition is to have one computer and one TV set for every room so they can conduct online learning.

Inspired by the partnership between the teachers and the local government unit, some prominent families in Mlang also offered to help the school by adopting more children. This picture shows some local donors who each of them adopts 5 to 10 children. The involvement of the local community to help the children is a good practice that must be promoted.

According to Cyrel, since the Gintong Aral (Golden Education) of Damayan was introduced, the school performance of the pupils has increased enormously. All graduating class passed the national examination and some of them got high scores.

More girls are now going to school.

The project serves as an inspiration for local communities which aspires to increase the quality of life of the people but hindered by lack of resources. With some external assistance, the community realised it can do more is they use available resources and if the whole community will pool their resources and work together.

Other schools in the Philippines and elsewhere in the world must try replicating Dugong's experience. It is a story of teachers, local government, parents, pupils, and the wole village trying to improve the quality of education and at the same addressing food shortage. It is a modest action but it is delivering results, and more importantlly, it is changing lives for the better.

Please see below the letter from Cyrel Defensor, school principal:

Greetings!

Gladness fills the hearts of the officialdom of Dugong Elem. School upon knowing that there are still stakeholders endowed with generous mind and heart willing to extend help. You are one of those whom we are grateful. We are happy to know personally from you that once again you have given your trust and confidence for being our partner in molding young ones to attain their dreams in life.

With deepest gratitude I recognized the efforts and support given by DAMAYAN and other organizations. We will not fail you in your expectations with our students and our school as a whole, for in the past years our school is increasing its quality of education and contending other big schools in the division of Cotabato. It is my pride to have a partnership with you and I’m happy to inform you that one of the scholars top the graduates of batch 2007 in the person of Cristine Joy Tamayo together with the others in the top 10. In addition to, we also top the different Achievement Tests in the division, with 100% of Graduates passing the National Achievement Test as to qualify them for the High School level. With these results, we acknowledge your efforts which is a great help and contributory in attaining these remarkable outcomes.

Concerning the EcoKids Club, new sets officers were elected since the previous officers have already graduated. We assure you that the different activities of the EcoKids Club will be given main concern and we will integrate environmental awareness in the teaching of Science and Health.

As to the financial request of our scholars, supplies may include bags and other school materials as the need may arise with their academic projects in different subjects.

In regards of the Barangay Council scholarship they reached to a number of 51 scholars to match up DAMAYAN grantees. In relation to this, the Barangay Council also funded 50% of the expenditures of the newly constructed school’s Social Hall and the labor was realized though bayanihan of the parents specially those parents with scholar-children leading the group.

We, therefore, would like to express and extend our gratefulness to the DAMAYAN for the support given to our scholars. We are grateful enough to know that you are giving time to visit our school and we are inviting you to see for yourself the extent of your assistance, which is of great help to the school populace.

Thank you very much for being a great part in bringing hope in the lives of our poor but deserving pupils. More Power!

Respectfully yours,

(SGD.) CYREL S. DEFENSOR

Principal