It was a year ago when I opened my community library located in Poblacion, Sta. Maria, Davao Occidental. The library is now more known to the community but could use more visits from the children and the public. I thought of a better advertising strategy to entice children to come in.

On a recent visit back home last January, I had the opportunity to speak at a flagpole ceremony at the nearby Jose Timbal Central School, which also has a BKP supported library.  I invited the students and faculty to visit the community library during off school hours and weekend.  I offered free pens and pencils for the first 100 children to bring home.  
 
The next few days, I attended a nursing conference in Manila. Upon returning to my hometown I was told of the excitement that happened in the library over the weekend.  That Saturday turned out to be a busy day for my niece, Jona Quito, the designated library manager.  Jona started her day with a 5-yr-old boy who came with his father at 7am.  Approximately 60 children came, ranging from kindergarteners to 6th graders.  More children came on Sunday and most notable was this 5-yr-old boy who returned with his dad.  I then had the chance to speak with him.  He said he just loves to read books, if he only has them! The boy somehow captured my interest, and I asked him more questions.  I asked him if he prays.  He said he does, and always prays for his mom's sight to be better.  His dad added that his wife is suffering from a reversible eye condition that made it difficult to see. One eye is worse than the other.  Lack of resources and knowledge about available government health care stifled her treatment.  Being a nurse case manager her in Massachusetts, my brain started to shift in that direction. Coincidentally, my sister who works as a nurse in a government hospital was with me and has taken on helping this family.

The story of this boy and my BKP volunteer work is an experience I consider a gift.  I am sure thankful to BKP for being a vehicle to meet this boy and to be a part of a meaningful conversation, and hopefully a fruitful one. 

 by John Snow
 

BKP kicked off an “early children’s English reading” project on November 4, 2017 in partnership with New Manila Rotary Club (RC) in Quezon City (QC) for one of Rotary International’s six focus areas: Basic Education. RC has been giving free books to the daycare centers of its adopted communities and barangays in QC for many years. With this fresh Iidea shared by their new Rotarian Julius Carlo Hipa, the club has now decided to enhance its community service and outreach by involving BKP. The collaborative objective is to intensify basic reading foundation for pre-school children to ensure better quantitative results for entry into regular schooling. The iInitial target audience with corresponding pilot assessment is its four daycare centers. This vision was conceived at the August 31 meeting with RC President Allan Gil, our BKP Philippines Director – Alice Quilicot, BKP and Rotary volunteer Julius “Carlo” Hipa, Normita Snow, and myself.   

1) Initial Phase of our BKP-Rotary partnership centers on RC’s existing daycare centers to be supported by a BKP First Step Engaged Reading (FSER) methodology seminar onsite for teachers and volunteers, and Rotarians. It will have a matching set of BKP reading book donations (mainly picture books) to target the reading and peripheral skills for very young children. As such, the pilot assessment will identify recommendations and lessons-learned to help trigger younger children’s reading capacities in general and to further nurture their basic learning capabilities. 
2) Follow-on Phase will target older learners with a goal of enriching reading skills via BKP Thinking While Reading (TWR) methodology workshops. These will use comparable books donations to enhance e-learning capabilities and skill-levels to achieve effective set of digital skills. Its baseline will use select QC elementary schools, the QC Science High School, and a public library, which are implementing the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Tech4ED (Technology for Education) Centers. Being more complex, this collaborative effort will need to leverage DICT’s Memorandum Of Agreements (MOAs) with these entities. US CodePhil NGO would have an onsite role through their student mentoring teams from MIT and Columbia University, and an In-Process MOA with DICT. Teams will utilize results from CodePhil initial scalable e-curriculum pilot projects (2016-2017) in N. Samar plus their hands-on experience from a collaborative 2017 Technology Summit for IT students via a MOA with University of Eastern Philippines. These efforts were predicated on the initial CodePhil education software programs to date: basic computer coding – CodePhil and keyboard skills – TypePhil for high school students. The online TypePhil version in English will be available soon via the DICT program manager as integral segment of their Tech4ED platforms. The offline version will later use flash-drive technology for portability within more austere rural areas.    
 

Given the potential for multiple project phases and their equivalent support requirements, BKP had an initial information exchange meeting August 4 with the DICT Tech4Ed Center program manager. This was in anticipation of a QC-focused project for older learners along with Rotary District-wide and DICT outreach to fully leverage their combined grassroots community knowledge and services. This will be further reinforced with Carlo as a Rotarian as member of the New Manila RC and their lead for project coordination with BKP.
 
BKP’s first technical tasking was a First Step Engaged Reading (FSER) methodology seminar on November 4, 2017 by Alice with daycare centers’ leaders and volunteers, and Rotarians. Next was Alice’s core volunteer role as CodePhil ambassador at the December 13 Tech4ED Center conference for National Capital Region (NCR) managers. This included overview of our BKP mission and outreach activities plus interactions via Q&A as a CodePhil partner. On January 16, 2018, coinciding with visit of BKP’s Director of Library Operations Lea Sison, an In-Progress Review (IPR) was conducted by BKP and New Manila RC. It focused on timely delivery of books to each daycare to retain effectiveness of seminar guidelines and training and to be orientated with follow-on phase timeline. It will have a structured set of mini-libraries via RC’s onsite interactions in support of our picture reading books delivery and daycares’ children groupings for daily AM and PM sessions. Carlo then received first of four Balikbayan Boxes (BB) of BKP books (160) for daycares early February 2018. These are to be assigned to a single daycare for evaluation to better understand children’s early reading progress and issues for other daycares’ (3) lessons-learned.
 

CodePhil NGO has a MOA In Process with the DICT for launch of TypePhil educational typing software at Tech4ED Centers across the Philippines. The Tech4ED Centers now incorporate e-curriculums online for many high schools (e-labs) and eventually for elementary schools (e-rooms) that could include the Lavezares Central Elementary School (LCES) and QC high schools. Therefore, students and parents from these schools can expect real-time benefits from evolving the CodePhil digital literacy curriculums and typing software as refined by “early users” feedback. There is also logical integration process for the BKP English Literacy Ecosystem model in Lavezares with CodePhil’s digital literacy initiatives and DICT support for “blended e-learning.” Students will not only be taught how to read proficiently in English in BKP-supported schools, but to develop own effective digital skills, such as keyboard typing, by employing community-based, functional English literacy implementation concept similar in scope to that of the supporting Lavezares LGU MOA in 2012.
 

The LCES and other Lavezares schools have now benefitted from this joint BKP stakeholder and school district-supported community education alignment via the LGU’s 2012 MOA construct. District was ranked highest in 2017 among all of N. Samar districts for English reading program proficiency per DepEd’s pathway-ahead statement as well as achieving a second place ranking for their schools’ SAT scores in 2016. This can be attributed to having reading core group (RCG) concept as their learning hub per LGU’s 2015 Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU). RCG has cadre of participating principals, reading coordinators, and administrators to leverage along with the available Information Technology (IT) teachers to begin to collaborate on holistic English and Digital literacy relationships. Another key consideration is use of MOAs and MOUs, where appropriate, in pursuit of common literacy goals to provide foundation for further project development and resources. As example, if the QC follow-on project does materialize, DICT already has in-place MOAs with Tech4ED-equipped schools and public libraries in QC, which will help us to define these entities for expanded project involvement.