In one word – “Synergy”. That sums up how the two classrooms came to be… Many coming together for a very worthy cause.
The classrooms look amazing and I quickly discovered that they are very much multi functional. Take a look at the photos & you will understand (no not the one with me taking a class but the other with us cooking during a class…).
Numbers at this public school will reach 700 soon & I’m sure this number will grow quickly due to the government trying to resettle displaced families into this region of Leyte.
Volunteer For The Visayans normally feed approximately 38 local sponsored children under their dumpsite program. Lunch is prepared and served within one of the two classrooms. Some of the younger children also have breakfast supplied here too.
All for less than A$3.85 per child per week. One day Deb & I would like to maybe help them with sponsoring one of these much needed nutrition programs.
Curry chicken and rice was todays lunch. Rico Alvarez & July Bendaña Yubal work hard on this project. They start at 4.30am for breakfast preparation and then again 10.00am for lunch preparation. They love when international volunteers help out but recently they have been preparing alone. It was great to help them out…
After we served lunch and all the children finished the meal I handed out some Cadbury chocolates from down under as a special treat.
A VFV nutrition team volunteer involved in another feeding program later told me that chocolate is a good form of healthy nutrition. Good call then….
I also had the pleasure of meeting with Sir Paul. He is the teacher that is responsible amongst other things, all sports activities at the school.
I handed across a basketball & two footballs. The basketball was very much needed for the upcoming sports competitions.
Sir Paul also spoke about the school’s soccer team captained by Ella who is also a VFV sponsored child. Ella by all reports is could make it easily to the National level in soccer with the right break.
Paul passionately said he truly believes “the soccer team is gradually empowering the kids to develop their talents and skills sports”.
I completely understand Sir Paul’s comments after spending time at the school during construction & growing up in a sporting nation like Australia.
The soccer team desperately needs a uniform to compete in a regional league. The cost for 15 competition tops & shorts works out to be about A$300.
If anyone in Australia would like to assist please message me.
It was time to say goodbye again to the students & all of them did say “goodbye sir” along with a few high fives as I was walking out of the school grounds. Oh it started to rain too and continued for about an hour.
Very timely because the surrounding communities have no mains water & many of the rainwater tanks would have been empty.
45hrs down on the 68hr trip full of many wonderful but productive experiences which will hopefully help many moving forward.
Written by: Les Treacy