It takes more than a village to raise a child

MANILA, Philippines – It was an unusual sight: Mothers, a handful of fathers and even grandmothers gather one early morning to attend a parenting talk and workshop in Tanay, Rizal.

What is there to learn? A lot, they conclude, mostly about how to discipline children and how to get them to listen.

“Maikli na ang pasensya ko. Noon, sa mga anak ko, isang tingin pa lang, alam na kung galit ka. Ngayon luwa na ang mata mo, di pa rin kililos (I get impatient now. Before, with my children, one look and they know I’m angry. Now I give them dagger looks and they still won’t move),” laments Lola Benilda whose five year-old grandchild is studying at the day care in Barangay Sampaloc in Tanay.

The parenting workshop – where they are taught things like stages of development and gentle discipline – complements the day care teacher training of Miriam College’s outreach program on early childhood education called Lingap Bulilit.

Aside from Tanay, a partner community of the school, the project has been successfully implemented in Quezon City, Pasig, Cavite, Malabon, and Calatagan in Batangas.

At the core of Lingap Bulilit are the day care children from poor communities and the need to take advantage of their development while in their formative years.

“We combine our areas of expertise – early childhood education, family life, and values education – with an active outreach program to train barangay day care workers who work with poor children. This is one way we hope to help bridge the wide education gap between rich and poor in our country,” says Miriam president Patricia Licuanan, who initiated Lingap Bulilit in 2003.

Lingap Bulilit (literally to “care for young children”) uses a two-pronged approach: teacher training to upgrade the competencies of day care workers as they prepare pre-schoolers for the “big school,” and a workshop designed for parents and guardians to ensure that lessons and values taught in school are the same at home.

“Recognizing the impact day care workers and parents have on the formation of young children, it is imperative that a training program and workshop be in place to equip them with the necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes and values,” says Dreena del Mundo, former principal of Miriam’s pre-school and current program director of Lingap Bulilit.

However, more emphasis is given to teacher training as “most of the day care workers have no formal training in early childhood education.”

The day care workers are taught how to apply the Thematic Integrated Approach where subjects like Math, Reading, Social Studies are taught using a unifying theme (i.e. family theme) so the children can easily make the connection.

They are also taught how to improvise and create instructional materials without having to spend money. “We always lacked instructional materials but now through this outreach we’ve learned to make visual aids from used straw, newspapers, popsicle sticks and kawayan or buko husk,” says Corazon Sacramento, president of the Day Care Association of Tanay and a teacher for 17 years.

To date, the project has trained more than 500 day-care workers. Last summer, Lingap Bulilit volunteers trained around 400 more in the municipalities of Lal-lo and the Third District of Cagayan in Cagayan Valley, Butuan in Mindanao, and in the island of Marinduque. In the works are partnerships with the local governments of Valenzuela City and Nasugbu in Batangas.

Lingap Bulilit proved to be a viable community project and taking it to the next level was almost a seamless transition. Still, with the goal of upgrading the competencies of day care teachers, the next step was to professionalize teaching and management in barangay day care centers through a two-year certificate course at Miriam College. To be sponsored by the local government, day care workers are given the opportunity to pursue a career in Early Childhood Education and bring their skills to levels at par with those in private pre-schools.

Currently, through Mayor Sonny Belmonte, there are 100 teachers from Quezon City enrolled in the certificate course under the program named “SB Pro Day Care.”   

Aside from the certificate course, Miriam will assist its partner local governments in creating an integrated system for day care centers to ensure quality service by enhancing curriculum, developing instructional materials, assessing facilities and strengthening organizations.

“Slowly, the local government is starting to realize the need to invest in early childhood education as the effects are long-term,” says Malou Turalde-Jarabe, director of Miriam College’s Institutional Network for Social Action (INSA), the office which implements the project.

For its contribution to education for poor communities, Lingap Bulilit was selected as one of the recipients of the Panibagong Paraan sa Puerto Princesa Award in 2007, a highly competitive project grant competition sponsored by the World Bank. At the same competition, Lingap Bulilit, which was on exhibit at the Mega Trade Hall, got the attention of the Assisi Development Foundation, which subsequently funded its implementation in Tanay.

One area at a time, Miriam College hopes to implement Lingap Bulilit in as many communities as possible. “It is truly amazing to see how the project has grown unexpectedly when the original plan was just to implement it with our partner communities. But what is truly noteworthy is seeing how everybody involved in this project is empowered – from our young teacher volunteers, Miriam faculty, community day care workers and parents of the day care children like those in Tanay who have realized that the changing times call for a different approach in the total formation of young children,” says Del Mundo.