verging_on_random

Adopting a school

January 29, 2008 on 5:15 pm | In Uncategorized |

This is the Roxas Elementary School in Tapaz, Capiz, Philippines. The occasion is a visit by that eminent kano Ken Lovell to present school supplies to the students.

The school consists of a collection of buildings that range in quality from barely acceptable to falling down. You can watch a video here and see where in one room the roof is literally collapsing. Another room only has a dirt floor and is open to the elements … god knows what it’s like in the wet season.

Here in Australia, the government’s laudable ambition is to provide every student with a computer. I was a bit more modest in helping the kids at this school; I made sure they all had a ballpoint pen, some crayons and pencils, a notebook and a writing pad. Everyone was very excited and grateful (you can see the Grade 5 hussies sending me love letters in the video).

Most of the teachers at this school live in Iloilo City, about two hours away by motorbike and bus. They travel to the school on Mondays and go home for the weekend. During the week they sleep at the school, on the floor. There’s a rice cooker and a few other odds and ends in the administration office where they can make meals and wash clothes. By the way, Americans retiring to live in the Philippines reckon you can live comfortably on 40,000 pesos a month. A teacher’s salary is about 8,000 pesos  a month. Still, they’re a lot better off than some of the parents of their students.

Despite all this, everybody is clean and well-presented and happy. Here’s one of the youngsters doing a native dance at the special assembly they had to welcome their visitors.

It’s hard to evaluate the extent to which people from outside can help this school. I think the impact will be considerable and far exceed the relatively small costs in Australian terms. It’s not just the money but the fact that people from a rich country like Australia are bothering to make a personal effort. On the day I visited, only about 50% of the kids were in attendance. Here’s an extract from an email the principal sent me the other day:

Indigenous Pupils of Roxas Elementary School really amazed the graces they have received. Such things increase almost 100% of school attendance the following school day up to the present.

In the video, you’ll see me meet a rather serious looking lady dressed in black. She is the Barangay Captain, a local government leader who has no exact equivalent in Australia. She thought my visit was so important she hastened over to the school when she found out I was there. One of the men up front with me is a local councillor. If you look closely, you can see villagers outside the gate looking in. The principal told me I was the first foreigner ever to visit the school. There’s no doubt that getting practical recognition from Australia is a Big Deal to these people. So the law of diminishing returns will undoubtedly set in over time but I believe a few people and a little money can have a great beneficial influence on these kids’ lives.

God knows there’s no shortage of ways to spend money that will do a lot of good. Some of the school buildings desperately need repairs and there’s a shortage of all kinds of basic equipment like books and writing pads and so on. Oh I forgot to tell you they just got their first ever computer for the administrators. It runs Windows 3.1 and there’s no internet connection but at least they can print documents … as long as they can afford to buy ink for the printer, which must cost an enormous amount by PI standards. So I’m not going to attempt to make a list of useful things to do with money, it would be too long. The problem will be in working out the greatest need. Essentials that we take for granted, like a photocopier and some musical instruments and a working telephone, are not even in contemplation at the moment.

Any assistance will have to depend on trust. I won’t be visiting again until the end of the year I don’t think. I’ve asked the school principal to let me have her thoughts on getting some minimum prudential oversight of any money I send, so we can all be sure it’s not going on indulgent luxuries like buying the teachers beds to sleep in, and she will get back to me. I’m going to open a new bank account here and I’ll kick it off with $500. I hope that other people will send me some money to deposit too.

I’ll be pestering my friends and work colleagues to add to the collection and one day soon I’ll cross-post at Road to Surfdom, which has a bigger audience. For now though I’d like to see if anybody is interested in helping this rather unsystematically enthusiastic exercise in practical foreign aid.

If you’d like to make a contribution by cheque you can send it to me, Ken Lovell, at PO Box 18, Pottsville, 2489. If you’d like to send by PayPal instead, you can find a donation button here. If you’d prefer, you can wait until I post details of the new bank account and transfer money direct. If anyone would like to help in another way, or would like some more information, please don’t hesitate to send me an email through this site.

This is as good a cause as I can think of for anyone who just wants to give a helping hand to good people who live, through no fault of their own, in circumstances immeasurably poorer than ours. And who knows? We might deter a potential future terrorist from hating Teh West, or even give the necessary first steps to an artist or community leader who can make thousands of people’s lives better. I hope you can send something and rest assured that it will truly make a difference.