Sari-saring Talk: “Paying It Forward” Part VIII. Project Library in Bagong Silangan Elementary School

The following is an excerpt from the final report of the group who donated a library space & reading room to the above school. They teamed up with a foundation to fund & build the facilities.

Project Library was aimed to offer a holistic approach to a community project in bringing the love for reading back to the young generation of Payatas, particularly that of Bagong Silangan Elementary school. The project plan consisted of developing a space conducive to reading, audio-visual and computer research, training school staff on library administration, offering new books and library materials, as well as conducting bookreading sessions with the pupils – all envisioned to lower the level of the school's non-readership among it's students.

When the Project started in 2005, we met beneficiaries who gave us more reason to push for the said endeavor. Like school kid, Elimor, whom we interviewed.

Elimor O. Biaculo is a fifth grade of Bagong Silangan Elementary School who usually goes to school empty-handed and needs to forego play to work on weekends to earn his daily allowance and help his parents eke out a living.

At 14, Elimor can pass off as a third-grader with his small frail body. Today, he goes around peddling ice cream and earning less than twenty (Php20) pesos after a day's work. Sometimes, his mother joins him sell ice cream when not washing clothes for other households. However, his mother could not be with him today being in a delicate condition on her tenth pregnancy and needs to be home.

Under the scorching heat, Elimor looks for people who would want to buy his ice cream, shouting and enticing them to taste the flavorful dessert. Sometimes he says he sees other children play and he yearns to join them but the thought of earning to sustain him in school burns more intensely. So he walks past them, resigned that this is the kind of weekends he has.

Being the eldest of a brood of eight boys and one girl (a sibling died, and another one coming), Elimor is an example of determination, responsibility and hard work at a tender age. Despite the fact that he was forced to drop out of school in the past due to poverty, he has not given up despite the odds.

His family lives in Class D & E community where all sorts of social ills greet them on a regular basis. For one, Elimor lives with his seven younger siblings (10 yrs to 8 months old) whose seen three different fathers in their household. His biological father, Morris, has no work, and his mother, Merlyn, is regularly pregnant without regular work. At present, his second stepfather, Ernesto, supports them as a construction worker.

Elimor knows the importance of education that will bring him out of poverty that's why he diligently studies his lessons, earning for himself a special citation in class for two years already.

He lights up when asked about school and shares his interests in science, the arts and physical education.
“I like the lessons on the planets and how these all came to be,” he says.

Below are photos of the work in progress, the blessing and the completed reading room.

SCHOOL QUADRANGLE