THE triumvirate of young educators, composed of Tisha Gonzalez-Cruz, Noelle Pabiton and Sholeh Villoria of the “Oras na Para sa Alpabasa” project, recently won the grand prize of P1 million in “Pharmaton’s Life Changers’ Challenge: Success in Numbers.”
Gonzalez-Cruz said their program involves teaching kinder and elementary schoolchildren how to read in 18 days. She developed the program while she was a teacher at the International School in Manila. During a crayon-drive program for the children of Bukidnon, she discovered the sad plight of children with very few reading materials through a picture sent to her by the children. Determined to uplift their plight, Gonzales-Cruz said in an interview with the BusinessMirror that she began to make reading materials on her own.
“We made materials in English first and then shared these with public schools and other communities. But we saw the need was greater for reading materials in Filipino,” Gonzalez-Cruz said. She added that Alpabasa started as a game-based program. She admitted the challenges became bigger when the needs became greater. At the same time, she said there was also a need to improve the quality of the reading materials. Gonzalez-Cruz cited the valuable support of Pabiton and Villoria who helped her put the improvements in the program.
Pabiton, a Grade 3 public-school teacher, said she noticed that “many of the students had poor foundations in literacy and numeracy.” Pharmaton Senior Brand Manager Bernice Jalgalado said the program was launched in search of “passionate Filipinos who cause positive change to the world around them.” Armed with passion and sustained energy to impact the lives of others, one of the 10 groups is set to be crowned as the ultimate life changer and will get to see their life-changing concepts come to life.
“Filipino life changers have truly proven how creative and how passionate they are in sustaining their energy and acting on their desire to make a significant change in the lives of the people around them,” Jalgalado said in a news statement. Chef Robert Pengson of the Goose Station commended the Alpabasa program because it addresses a major issue in education. “The foundation of learning is reading,” he said in an interview with members of the mass media. The other finalists were: K to 12 Science to students using indigenous materials; Kiddo+Preneur, a group advocating to get kids interested in business and entrepreneurship; Island Kid, a program aimed at helping make a brighter future for Filipino children through soccer; Red Light District, a group of Singapore-based individuals aiming to help equip Philippine communities to better respond in times of calamities and disasters; The Mush-Keteers, social entrepreneurs who are seeking to build the foundations of a progressive mushroom industry in the Philippines; the Indigenous Cultural Tourism Program in Mindanao, heritage warriors seeking to promote cultural tourism as a tool to alleviate poverty in certain areas in Mindanao;
Passion Wearthy Project, a social enterprise providing livelihood to people with disabilities through handcraft items made from recyclable materials; Silent Beads, a social-entrepreneurship brand that creates beads and fashion jewelry from repurposed materials, which can later on be used to grow plants; and Prepper Plus, which endeavors to promote disaster-readiness in every Filipino family through disaster-preparedness education.
