18 Jul 2019
Our Sacred Heart family at the MSC Missions Office in the Philippines recently reported on their current education project in the Hapag Community in Amparo, North Caloocan, where a helping hand has been extended to disadvantaged youths in the community whose parents cannot afford to send them to school.
This project has aimed to support students in order to allow them to continue their studies, despite difficulties with poverty and hardship in their home lives. Students have been provided with the supplies they need to attend school and complete their class projects and homework, as well as nutritious food to ensure their physical and mental health.
Not only has the programme relieved a huge amount of stress for young students and their families, but it has also addressed the growing issue of drop-outs from the local school. The drop-out rate has been a serious concern as families struggling to put meals on the table simply can’t afford to send their children to school. However, since the implementation of this educational assistance programme, there has been a zero drop-out rate in the 2018/2019 school year – all remaining students have successfully continued with their studies, many with consistently rising grades.
“[Our students] have continued their sense of paying it forward by leading our Big Brother and Big Sister Tutorial schemes, by participating in regular community clean-up duties, and by running a weekly youth prayer group,” reports the MSC Missions Office in the Philippines.
The MSC community in the Philippines now hopes to focus on building livelihood programmes in the area, to provide employment opportunities for parents and to give local families valuable tools for self-sufficiency. Thanks to the support of our mission friends and benefactors around the world, our MSCs in the Philippines can continue to shine the light of hope for communities and families in need, where the future once looked bleak.
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