Education Secretary Armin Luistro: Read even one book. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines–Read to feed your mind and nourish your imagination, Education Secretary Armin Luistro urged students on Monday.
Luistro kicked off National Reading Month at the Pasig Central Elementary School, where he urged the students to get into the habit of reading books.
He also sought donations of all kinds of books to public schools nationwide.
In his speech, Luistro told Pasig Central pupils in Filipino, “There are books that will take you anywhere in the world… books open up new and strange worlds that we might neither know nor reach. They can give us anything we imagine.”
“I encourage all students to read even one book. If you do that, you can achieve whatever you want to achieve and reach your dreams,” he said.
This year’s Reading Month theme is “Nasa Pagbasa ang Pag-asa (Reading offers hope).”
Luistro also urged the public to take part in the #ShareABookPH project by donating a book to a public school and then challenging their friends on social network sites to do the same.
Under the project, a person should post on social media sites, like Facebook or Twitter, a picture of the book they are donating to a public school and then tag their friends and challenge them to do the same.
Book donations may be made to the nearest public school or to the DepEd main office on Meralco Avenue in Pasig City.
In a memorandum, Luistro encouraged all preschools, elementary and high schools nationwide to celebrate National Reading Month by undertaking activities that would rekindle their students’ love for books.
Activities, such as reading and storytelling sessions and book donations, are to be conducted in the run-up to “Araw ng Pagbasa (Day of Reading)” on Nov. 27, the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.’s birthday.
It was proposed that on all the Mondays of November, storytellers, school officials and teachers lead book-reading activities following the flag-raising ceremony. Teachers and students may likewise share stories of hope with children in evacuation centers, on the streets and orphanages.
As a highlight of the monthlong celebration, teachers, parents and volunteers may set up public mini-libraries from donated books in communities, orphanages and institutions that they may choose to adopt.