Our initial plan was to offer environmental education for local kids. We still do that, but we quickly realized that the kids had other, more pressing needs.
The first of these is basic reading skill. While some kids are already reading by the end of Grade 1, others are still struggling, and in large classes, teachers are hard-pressed to give personal attention to the latter. Some kids are still struggling several years later, even up to junior high school. We’re talking letter recognition and phonetics, still far away from comprehension. If reading skill isn’t improved right away, how can the kids learn anything else? So (almost) every summer vacation we organize a month of remedial reading, pairing up struggling young readers with volunteer tutors from the village high school and from nearby colleges. We get enough volunteers to have a 2:1 student/tutor ratio, good enough to get most struggling readers past whatever was troubling them. We start with Bicol and Pilipino (Tagalog) words and books, and then the more advanced readers progress to English. The program is fun for the young kids, and also for the mostly teen-age tutors, who bond and feel good about themselves. Some of our early struggling readers have come full circle, later becoming volunteer tutors, going to college, and even becoming teachers.
For kids of any age, we have some desktop PCs free for use. As of now, we haven’t run formal classes, but offer individual help, and kids have used apps to help their reading, arithmetic, and drawing skills. Most of you grew up with home computers (or even pre-date them!), but kids in rural villages like ours are just getting started on that road. Smart phones are already ubiquitous while home PCs are still rare, but familiarity with PCs will help students master office apps like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Canva, etc.
Teens in Salvacion have many of the same angsts as teens anywhere — about relationships, identity, self-confidence, sexual attraction vs. risks of unwanted pregnancy, what to pursue in life, etc. Yet these are sensitive topics that many teens and parents find hard to discuss. We have offered 3-day, 2-night teen camps where discussion is facilitated and encouraged. Early feedback is that these help and we’ll continue them.
Finally, as high school graduates come a decision point about whether to stop schooling after high school or continue, money for college is usually a huge concern. So Mirisbiris offers need-based partial scholarships, currently P12,000 per year for 4 years. This is about half of the cost of attending a public university or community college, and most recipients’ parents or relatives cover the balance. Twenty years ago, almost no students in Salvacion or neighboring Buhatan went beyond high school. In academic year 2024-25 we have about 70 on scholarships, 14 graduating this year, and about 65 already graduated — a big and gratifying change from 20 years ago! Education is the best way we know for families to climb out of poverty.
Those who visit Mirisbiris are helping all of these kids through school! Thank you!
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