|
RICALYN F. CANIEDO
ECHAGUE, ISABELA
Building Tomorrows is a project created by Jessica Gallegos Dy, president of the Mengal Women Organization. This project aims to save and rehabilitate five (5) day care centers/preschool facilities from being shut down in the town of Echague, Isabela.
Daycare centers provide early childhood education to the indigent children of mostly farmers residing in poor communities in Echague. Unfortunately, many of the barangays in Echague does not produce enough income to allocate funds for better daycare centers in their community. The lower the income of a barangay, the less funding they can use for their daycare centers. Hence, they built makeshift classrooms using nipa, bamboo rods, galvanized iron sheets, and other indigenous materials available to them that may be unsafe for young children at times. Some classrooms lack cemented flooring, so children walk on bare ground. At times the classrooms leak or flood when it rains, forcing teachers to cancel classes to safeguard the preschoolers. Among the 64 daycare centers in Echague, five failed to pass accreditation due to poor classroom conditions. A good number of classrooms barely passed.
The project’s goals are to raise capital and materials, create cost-efficient daycare Centers, and establish sustainable daycare centers. Building Tomorrows has tied up with five (5) communities and their respective Barangay officials, several organizations, and professionals to achieve its goals. The members of the project conducted several fundraising activities for the cause. Some of its notable programs were the Ugly Kitchen New York Fundraiser (2016), Kiss for a cause Fundraiser (2018), LnB Barangay Night Raffle (2018), etc. These fundraising activities were done simultaneously with the collection of plastic bottles through the partners of Building Tomorrows.
On September 8, 2019, the first Building Tomorrows’ daycare center was constructed, a classroom made out of plastic trash-filled plastic bottles. This was made using recycled stuffed plastic bottles to replace hollow blocks for the walling of classrooms. Through the use of plastic bottles and trash, they are cutting project costs, reducing waste, and more importantly, we are teaching the community and future generations the importance of recycling and sustainable project building. This project was also supported by the Miss Earth International candidates of 2018.
Through the efforts of the Mengal Women Organization, they were able to collect 20,000 plastic stuffed plastic bottles for the construction of this daycare center. The Building Tomorrows project is aspiring to build four (4) more daycare centers in the future. With this, they are continuously encouraging the people in Echague to make plastic stuffed plastic bottles to donate to this cause. At present, they have collected 5,000 pieces of plastic-stuffed plastic bottles and are still accepting more so they can build more daycare centers for Echague, Isabela.
Click here to see the full KLIMA-likasan Entry: Building Tomorrows
|