Grateful recipients praise Aboitiz Foundation's programs

MANILA, Philippines - In eloquent English, three beneficiaries of the Aboitiz Foundation’s education intervention programs Nina Faith Awe, Beryl Ann Manching and Deborah Boquecosa took turns in praising the foundation for making possible the realization of their dreams.

Awe, a foundation scholar, is a graduating accountancy student at the University of San Carlos; Manching, graduated in 2009 from BS Management and is now happily employed at the Aboitiz Group of Companies and Boquecosa, is a single parent of three college students, the youngest of which was a foundation scholar in high school who graduated valedictorian but again applied and was granted the college scholarship.

They each thanked the Aboitiz Foundation, headed by Jon Ramon Aboitiz, for providing them a golden opportunity to prove to themselves and to society that they can achieve excellence and be an asset to the country.

Hearing this almost drove tears to Jon Ramon who clapped and stood after each finished their speeches in front of thousands of students and teachers, all scholars and beneficiaries of the company’s education intervention since the late nineties.

The Aboitiz Group’s philanthropy can be traced to centuries of goodwill that their forebears gave in Leyte and which the current generation of company leaders continued to this day, said Aboitiz.

He said the legacy of a good education is the group’s commitment to help the next generation “achieve their hopes and ambitions. Education is the area where we can create a great impact with positive effects on the lives of our beneficiaries,” he added.    

Aboitiz said only through education and skills training “can we help open wider doors of opportunity for our beneficiaries to improve their quality of life, mold them into assets of society and train them to be globally competitive.”

From 2000 to present, he said, the group appropriated P1.4 billion for corporate social responsibility programs, half of which was allocated to education intervention that included schoolbuildings, classrooms and furnitures, sanitary and hygienic facilities, books and other instructional materials, teacher training programs; donating brand-new computers, printers, software and other peripherals and a lot more. But more importantly,  a scholarship program from grade school to tertiary levels, particularly in depressed areas.

“Todate, some 32,000 public school students nationwide have benefited from the 261 classrooms we have built since 1996. Having rooms that are conducive to learning help improve students’ performance,” Aboitiz said.

He added that nearly 10,000 students have benefited from over a thousand computers the Aboitiz Foundation has donated and close to 60 computer labs that it has refurbished.

The foundation supports about 1,300 students – from street children to college students -- through different scholarship programs. Our other interventions include library kit donations that have benefited some15,000 students.

Through its active participation in the DepEd’s Adopt-a–School program and Brigada Eskwela, UnionBank, the Aboitiz Group’s financial services subsidiary, in partnership with the DepEd, implements the UnionBank Learning System: Developmental Reading Integrated with Values Education for Good Citizenship.

It was first implemented in 2007 and on Sept. 13 this year, it was simultaneously rolled out in public schools for school year 2010-2011, benefiting 533,000 Grade 2 pupils, 12,500 Grade 2 teachers, and 5,200 schools. The areas covered are: the National Capital Region, Region VII (or Central Visayas) and Region XI (or the Davao Region), as well as the schools divisions and districts in Nueva Ecija, Sarangani, Basilan and Tawi –Tawi.

Since 2007, UnionBank has distributed 1.4 million student’s workbooks, 24,000 teacher’s handbooks, 11,500 teaching books, and 6,000 multimedia teaching video sets.

Another foundation of the group, the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation or RAFI also implements different programs in education. Since 2000, it has appropriated P161 million to educational related projects, such as school rehabilitation, building of new schools, scholarships and other education related projects. Since 2004, over 18,000 students have benefited in its repair of 457 classrooms in 136 schools in 34 towns in Cebu.

RAFI has trained over 6,100 young people for its Kool Adventure Camp and Children’s Festival. Over 400 young leaders have undergone nine months of training at the Young Minds Academy where they were honed on the 3 C’s, namely, character, competence and citizenship. Graduates from both the Kool Adventure Camp and the Young Minds Academy create a network through the Aboitiz Leaders of Excellence where they continue to grow, lead and serve.

Aboitiz said the scholars with exemplary achievements are rewarded through renewal of grants and possible employment in Aboitiz companies after graduation. We also assess the utilization of our donations and its effect on the school’s overall performance.

The foundations use measurement scorecards and reward system to challenge its beneficiaries to constantly improve and maximize the use of the donations. “If they do, they will be rewarded with more interventions and other assistance in the future. That is our challenge,” Aboitiz said.