15 minutes with a hero: Efren Peñaflorida

MANILA, Philippines - It all starts with a piece of bread, but the donations are not your usual dole-outs. They are given only after the recipient, who is usually a small child or an out-of-school teenager, has accepted another invitation: this time, to attend a 15-minute class on reading, writing, and basic values formation.

It may take the young “teachers,” mainly volunteers and Christian workers, time to encourage their younger charges to open themselves up to learning as a constant in their lives – but it does happen. Soon enough, the students start gravitating to the books first, then the bread (and other goodies) later.

“Before, their motivation was food,” admits Efren Peñaflorida, 28, a high school teacher in Imus, Cavite’s upscale Palm Ridge School and a leader of the Christian group, the Dynamic Teen Company (DTC). “Now the kids are more excited to learn and read their books.”

An offshoot of the Christian organization Club 8586, DTC and its zealous young men and women have been holding classes on leadership, the 3Rs, and Christian values in dump sites, jails and cemeteries to reach out to the marginalized young and give them an alternative to street violence, gang wars, and ultimately, a life of mendicancy or crime.

Peñaflorida, who as representative of his group has just been chosen CNN’s Hero of the Year, is one such convert, both in faith and in lifestyle. Growing up as a young boy in an area near a dumpsite in Cavite, he shared a one-room shack with his parents and two siblings. Though he helped his folks make a living by packing fish crackers after school, the attraction of joining a gang was always present. Fortunately, a World Vision scholarship during his elementary years and his fateful meeting with a pastor from Club 8586 set him on the straight and narrow. 

Other friends would follow his path, and not a few former street thugs eventually became his co-mentors. Believing in giving back, Peñaflorida remained active in volunteer work throughout his high school years, rising up the leadership ranks as he finished two courses in formal education. After receiving his associate diploma in computer technology from San Sebastian College, he went back to the classroom to finish his bachelor’s degree in education, this time from the Cavite State University.

“My own education was non-stop,” he says, “and I love it. Education is a passion.” His fervor is shared by more than a hundred of his peers who have taken up the cause to develop learning and a love for it among more than 300 – and still growing – kids who live in four areas in Cavite City. 

The burden is made easier by their mobile kariton (pushcart) classrooms that literally deliver books, notebooks, lunch packs, hygiene materials, canteen station, chairs and tables, and a computer to their students. The ingenious devices have caught the attention of the media in the past couple of the years, which ultimately led to the CNN nomination and eventual award. 

Peñaflorida and his group were awarded $25,000 for landing in the top ten, and get an additional $100,000 as the top prize. Though obviously enthused at the award, he has remained practical about the winnings – except for the ten-percent tithe to his church, the rest will go to re-equipping the kariton classrooms or probably creating more of them (the creation of one costs between P20,000 to P30,000).

These days, even the parents of the poor children are becoming converts. There were – and still are – times when Peñaflorida and his group would receive jeers and angry refusals from fathers and mothers who would rather see their offspring begging on the streets rather than attending the 15-minute classes. The kariton teachers’ reaction was classic: counter opposition with more education. Peñaflorida says, “We did tell them that their children, even though very young, had rights; these rights included opportunities for learning. We also told them that they had rights as parents.”

It was the message that hooked these elders into accompanying their kids and eventually attending. Once regular numbers of parents were coming, Peñaflorida and his group created a separate literacy program for them.

It is not just the eyes of the poor and marginalized that he wants to open. Sometimes, through the respective school’s own immersion classes, he brings their more well-heeled students on an exposure trip to the dumpsite and the other depressed areas. “These well-to-do kids took their education for granted,” Peñaflorida shares, but after those trips “they learned to value the fact that they have the opportunity to study.”

For everyone to share this belief and value is one item ona Peñaflorida’s wish list, because then, just maybe, the country will see a larger share of college graduates and fewer dropouts every year. “I can’t believe that every year only 120 students graduate from college out of a batch of 1000. These kids should be given the opportunity to study and learn,” says the teacher whose peers have affectionately teased as a future Secretary of Education.

In the meantime, he and his group continue planting the seeds of renewal. One of their most zealous volunteers is 10-year-old Chris, who was abandoned by his mother near a store franchise. Today, he is leading the charge to hold classes among kids of his own age and to bring them books, some of which he bought out of his own small savings. It is stories like these that encourage Peñaflorida to continue his calling and dream of bigger things, and to raise up more heroes among our youth.