BACACAY, Albay—Newspapers and magazines are usually used to wrap dried fish and other commodities before they reach the islands, and one village here is no exemption.
“But the trend will change with the partnership between Sunwest Care and the Inquirer to make the broadsheet fully accessible to schoolchildren on a regular basis, giving them equal opportunity to read and compile for future reference,” Sunwest Care chairman Elizaldy Co said.
Co was talking about the memorandum of agreement (MOA) signed between the Inquirer and Sunwest Care for the latter to sponsor an Inquirer Learning Corner (ILC) at Misibis Elementary School.
Anelyn Sumanga, managing director of the Sunwest Care group, said the partnership was part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) program “to put newspapers and other reading materials in the hands of school children.”
“This is not only to show but to prove that Sunwest Care truly cares and is willing to join hands with the Inquirer especially for island schoolchildren who are rarely reached by these informative and educational reading materials,” Sumanga added.
In the ILC program, public schools will receive free subscriptions to the Inquirer through the sponsorship of readers (individuals, groups, corporations, etc.). The newspaper copies will be kept in a permanent place (InqSpot) in the school to make them easily accessible to students and teachers Monday to Friday from June to March of each school year.
Keeping up with the news
Melany C. Bas, a first-grade teacher at the school, revealed that children at her school hardly had any access to newspapers or any reading publications, for that matter, except for school books. She said she was happy that the InqSpot would not only introduce the school’s 192 pupils (Grades 1 to 5) to reading newspapers but also update the teachers on current events to “help us teachers discuss prevailing issues and news more interactively.”
Bas said she and her colleagues would encourage all schoolchildren to read more.
Second-grade teacher Teofista B. Torrejos said her 37 pupils were very much ready to catch up with current information they would be able to get from the Inquirer.
“This will help my pupils, as well as the rest of the 192 schoolchildren, us teachers, and school personnel to learn many things from the newspapers,” she said.
Student Jay-Are Brecia, 10, admitted he was not much of a reader but that he was excited when he learned that there would be an InqSpot soon in his school.
He said he was most eager to read the Junior Inquirer, which he saw only in its digital form when the Inquirer Southern Luzon Bureau staff opened digital editions of various Inquirer publications on a computer notebook during the MOA signing.
“I want to read the Junior Inquirer and I will seek help from our teachers in interpreting the broadsheet so that we will fully understand their contents,” he said in the local language.
Michelle Base, a 7-year-old Grade 2 pupil, has been reading almost anything under the sun. “Whatever reaches my hands, be it a candy wrapper, sardines and other product labels, I read them and now that newspapers are here, there is no more reason for us not to read more. Our teachers told us to start while young,” she beamed.
Gemina Quiros, Sunwest CSR director, said Misibis Elementary School was just one of the public schools adopted by the Sunwest group of companies, a real estate development firm that operates hotels, commercial complexes and the posh resort Misibis Bay on Cagraray Island.
“We are very happy and positive about the success of these schoolchildren because reading is the first step to success,” Quiros said.
A school wanting to put up its own ILC must determine the permanent nook or corner it wants to transform into an InqSpot, which may be situated in the library, hall or cafeteria.
An individual or a group of individual readers who wishes to donate copies of the Inquirer to a public school InqSpot will have to pay for a minimum of five copies of the Inquirer daily, Monday to Friday, from June to March, to be delivered to a school either of their choice or one on the ILC program’s list of partner schools.
The aim of the ILC is to create a place in every public school in the country where students and teachers can read the newspaper and discuss the news or issues of the day.