DAVAO CITY—The country’s leading independent oil company, Phoenix Petroleum, has increased its exposure in community assistance by hiking the total number of adapted public schools nationwide, and increasing also the total number of elementary pupils who moved up to the next higher grade level during the last decade.
This year its corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm, the Phoenix Philippines Foundation, witnessed the moving up to Grade One of the 3,319 kindergartens from various schools nationwide that it has supported.
The different moving-up ceremonies were held from March 28 to April 5, as friends and relatives joined their schoolchildren in the ceremonies. The company said the schoolchildren were from 14 Phoenix-adopted schools, in Batangas, Calapan, Manila, Aklan, Cebu, Iloilo and Davao City.
The Phoenix Philippines Foundation has been helping Filipino youth get started in life by allowing them to study for free through its Adopt-A-School program, a program that started in 2009.
Its first adopted school was the Vicente Hizon Elementary School in Davao City. The project was expanded to 23 public schools nationwide: six in Luzon, seven in the Visayas and 10 in Mindanao. Phoenix shoulders the monthly salaries of the schools’ preschool teachers and donates books for their libraries, enabling preschoolers to study for free.
The company said it has built Phoenix Libraries in various schools across the country, equipping these with books, tables, chairs and other learning materials.
The company said its employees were periodically sent to join the Brigada Eskwela program of each school year as they help clean and refurbish classrooms.
Aside from the Adapt-A-School program, the company said it has also supported out-of-school youth, the unemployed, and those looking to learn new skills, through the Alternative Learning System. ALS is a free livelihood education program of the Department of Education, implemented with the support of institutions like Phoenix.
So far, Phoenix Foundatio has supported two ALS schools, the F. Bangoy Central Elementary School in Davao City and the Banisil Central Elementary School in General Santos City.
“Phoenix helps fuel the dream of more Filipinos by sponsoring the salaries of instructors, providing training facilities and equipment, allowing students to study various courses, such as welding, plumbing, electrical installation, maintenance, computer servicing, and beauty culture and hairstyling for free,” it said.