CARE for Mindanao gifts Upi school kids
UPI, Maguindanao - School children of Bongbong Elementary
School in far-flung Barangay Ganasi in Upi, Maguindanao wore smiles on their
faces as they each received a school kit and an essential care kit from the
Center for Advocacy Research and Education for Mindanao (CARE for Mindanao) on
Saturday.
The activity, the first to be conducted
under CARE for Mindanao’s PAPEL Outreach Project or Pluma at Papel para sa
Edukasyon at Makabatang Lipunan, aims to advance children’s right to education
and strengthen child protection systems in disadvantaged and conflict-affected
communities in central Mindanao.
At least 152 elementary school children
received school kits consisting of notebooks, writing pads, pencils, ballpens,
crayons, eraser and sharpeners, and care kits with toothbrush, toothpaste and
hand-washing soap, said CARE for Mindanao President Michael Dumamba.
Moro schoolchildren, who attend Bongbong
Elementary School along with their Teduray and Christian counterparts, will
find the school kits useful when they attend Madrasah classes this summer
during the regular school break, he added.
Dumamba explained that the successful
conduct of the project is due to the collective and active participation of
volunteers, agencies and individual donors who pledged support to the advocacy
outreach project. The goods collected for the outreach project were personally
chosen and handed-over by individual supporters, he said.
Aside from the distribution of school
and care kits, the outreach program also included sessions on children’s rights
and protection, child trafficking and hygiene promotion, conducted with the
assistance of Bongbong Elementary School teachers led by their OIC-Principal
Ma. Genevieve O. Palaca. Mubarak M.
Lauban/NDU BA Comm