NURTURE is an endeavour that was put together with the goal of leveling the field of opportunity for the children and people of the Malungon Region, Mindanao Island the Philippines.
To level the field of opportunity, we’ve set out with our first goals of building libraries for the 81 schools in the region. None of these schools have an adequate library, in fact NONE of them have enough books to be called a functioning library, and most have have NO BOOKS at all. Can you imagine your life without books?! What about the lives of your children?
We’ve had the opportunity to build 19 school libraries. Our first was in February 2018 with an additional 18 being built between January 27th and February 13th, 2019. Those libraries were filled with the over 30,000 books donated by generous donors in both Hong Kong and Singapore.
Along with building libraries, we’ve had the opportunity to implement a Legacy Program with English Reading Mentors. A select group of students from each school with a new library are trained to be English Reading Mentors. These mentors are given the responsibility of trying to instill a love of learning English with the younger peers. This is done with a English Book Reading time at each lunch hour.
What we’ve done so far: 19 NEW School Libraries / 12 Senior English Reading Mentors with a year’s experience, 70 newly trained mentors placed in schools with new libraries.
What We Plan to Do as We Go Forward.
We’ve got an additional 63 School Libraries to build. We need to collect anywhere from 100-120,000 more books to sufficiently stock those libraries. We would be very happy to have this phase completed by December 2021. 2 libraries a month / 4000 donated books needed to accomplish that goal.
We will continue to train mentors for each school that receives a new library.
The Above is Just Chapter ONE !!
Now We’re Onto Chapter TWO
Some time by the end of 2019 we hope to have charitable status either with a Charity or Foundation.
With this status we hope to raise money for the following:
A self-sustainable scholarship fund ( post secondary education )
Implement a Work to Learn Program - Seasoned and Passionate Mentors are trained to teach an English Phonics and Literacy Program to preschool children. Students can earn money for their daily lives and also have funds put into a personal account to be set aside for the post secondary education costs.
To hire an IT Teacher for each school or a group of schools to help bridge the digital divide.
We WILL be VERY different from other charitable entities. We WILL be held accountable to our donors. We WILL be 110% transparent with ALL costs. We WILL focus on one geographical area. Our goal with having one geo target is so that there can be some real tangible change. We will start with the Malungon Region of Sarangani Province, and once that is up and running, we will set up camp into a neighbouring region. Imagine bringing up a whole province region by region.
We are doing this because we want to break the cycle of poverty. We want to empower all students but especially the girls. We want to show them they are STRONG, that they can break the cycle of poverty if they know they have a much better opportunity to overcome obstacles with our help!
