Nurturing the children

Productive lunches are like power lunches. It depends on the person you are having lunch with, the reason for the lunch and what comes out of it. I thought Kaye Tinga was a low-key personality who seemed totally down-to-earth and unaffected, she being the wife of Freddie Tinga, the Taguig mayor. Our first meeting was over lunch, eating with our hands sharing a meal of rice and meat on top of brown paper with many other people who came by to attend the inauguration of Habitat for Humanity’s Homes built in Taguig for the many squatters in the area. An invitation to another lunch would soon follow, one more sedate and tasty, allowing more time to share a part of each other’s busy lives.

Kaye’s focus is clear: she has set her mind to help her husband build proper homes for the 30,000 squatter families in Taguig. Working with both, there have already been close to 4,000 homes built for the poor, together with Gawad Kalinga and Habitat for Humanity but many still need to be built. But closest to her heart are her day-care centers under her private foundation called LightTomorrow Foundation, an initiative she started before her husband became mayor.

She personally supervises the close to 135 day-care centers (as of last count). Pre-school children from three to five years old are taken care off and fed. She also beams with pride when she tells me that Taguig won the award as the most outstanding city for nutrition, education and feeding programs. Moving between the foundation and her public work, she says: “The greatest challenge is a private family life that is now a public life. Everything I do is magnified. So I try to do something positive... it’s the only thing that keeps me going. I tell my children we are so lucky to be given the opportunity to help other people. Not everyone has the position to help.” And she rushes off in jeans to attend a social integration community workshop which the GK was giving focus on values formation.

There are many people I know like Kaye, doing as much positive changes they can, often doing work in the shadow. But it is heartening to see people put in positions where power is used to wield positive influences that affect many people’s lives.

Corporate power wields as much positive change when it not only gives livelihood but when it goes beyond the financial bottom lines to include care for society. Take the case of the Bright Minds Read Program of Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC), McDonald’s corporate social responsibility arm.

This is a beginning reading program supported by the Department of Education which helps Grade One students read and strengthen their skills in reading and critical thinking. DepEd records show that the 15 percent drop-out rate among incoming Grade Two students is not due to their struggle with poverty. Students drop out because of their difficulty to make sense of school. Since the development of the BMR campaign, more kids were kept in school as the percentage of Grade One non-readers dropped from 40 percent to four percent.

The BMR program has become a regional success. Hundreds of pupils from over 110 public elementary schools in Tawi-Tawi City, Tanauan City and Ilo-Ilo City have shown significant growth in their reading habits. Because of this, the RMHC has expanded its BMR Program from only 14 schools in NCR in 2002 to 2,000 schools covering all regions. By 2010, RMHC hopes to be part of 37,500 public elementary schools nationwide. Kenneth Yang, president of RMHC, is all positive when he speaks about expanding this program. He says, “Our goal is to reach all public elementary nationwide.”

Zonito Torrevillas, executive director of RMHC, recalls one of the BMR students in Legaspi City, who, at the time, was mid-way through the program. When she asked him what time it was, his teacher spoke up and said he didn’t know how to tell time yet. Much to the teacher’s surprise, the student was able to tell Zonito the exact time. When his teacher asked him how he was able to do that, the student replied, “Because I know how to read!”

RMHC also provides Bahay Bulilit Day Care Centers which builds day-care centers in low-income areas as well as provides primary education to children under six years old. As part of its mission to help uplift the welfare of Filipino public school children, RMHC provides these centers where children can play and learn at the same time. At present, there are 14 Bahay Bulilit day-care centers and two more are in the construction process.

Feed the children’s physical bodies, offer them care and homes, or titillate their mind with knowledge... all these efforts are but expressions of the best of us, the higher parts of our nature. And we must do more, consciously and lovingly.