West Negros University supporting SDC's education program

West Negros University has a National Service Training Program in Literacy Development. As part of this program, they ran six Saturday tutoring lessons with the children of the SDC. We were happy to have 22 Teacher Education students help our residents. The children were divided into two groups, those enrolled in ALS and the younger children not enrolled in ALS. The ALS students focused on activities to supplement the ALS curriculum. The other children worked on functional literacy skills that varied according to the children’s wide-ranging abilities and academic experience.

It was very exciting to see this program not only as a welcome addition to our growing education program at the SDC, but also as a support to the building culture of learning at the SDC. The children are very eager to learn and to progress academically, and turnout at the optional tutoring sessions is always above 90%. Even after the tutors left the sessions, several of the children would keep working together to practice and teach one another skills.

It is now summer break for schools in the Philippines, so tutoring from West Negros University is on hold. However, we hope to solidify a formal partnership over the summer so that we will have tutors during both semesters next school year and in the future. This program holds great promise as a means of bolstering the ALS program and in providing basic literacy education services to the street children and other children at risk at the center, as well as in providing hands-on teaching and community outreach experience to teaching students at West Negros University.