The initial RYE School Summer Classes have come to an end. A big thanks to Steve, Betsy and Josh who worked so hard to make it a success!
The classes were taught in an unused local school (as they children were on their summer break). As a way of saying thank you for the use of the classrooms, Meaningful Volunteer donated ten boxes of chalk to the school. The Filipino government gives a measly 300 pesos chalk budget for each teacher for the year. This amounts to about 1 cm of chalk per lesson! Needless to say, the chalk was gratefully accepted. Meaningful Volunteer also covered the power bill and will continue to support the school through the year.
The two English Land 3 classes will be combined into one class and taught during the students lunch break. The English Land 5 and 6 students were also combined into one class. There has been a reshuffle of some of the computer classes as well.
Some of our students graduated from Elementary School and now move onto the high school stage of their education. We wish them well. There is no high school in Sugod, so they all face a long walk - sometimes more than an hour - in the hot sun just to get school. Many of them will have to walk up and down a mountain as well. The stark reality for many of these students is that only 1 in 3 of then will be unable to finish high school, mostly due to financial reasons
The classes will be continued to be taught in spare rooms in the school until we get our own facilities built.