Lapis at Papel Initiative

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

Introduction

This initiative was born when one summer I went to the barrio where my mom used to teach in a primary school. I saw the conditions of the school. The six-classroom school before is now a three-classroom school. The three classrooms were destroyed during one of the numerous typhoons that visits our island province of Catanduanes. So from then on, no repairs were done on the destroyed classrooms.

Because of the lack of classrooms, the school devised a way for the school and the pupils to finished their primary grade. In one school year, they have Grade 1, Grade 3, and Grade 5 students. The following year, the students will be in Grade 2, Grade 4 and Grade 6. So the next school year, will then be again Grade 1, Grade 3 and Grade 5. And the cycle continues.

I also found out that most pupils cannot continue their schooling because of lack of basic school materials, such as, papers and pencils.

Thus, this initiative came to be ...

2012 First Year

This is the set of school supplies when we started this project: two pencils, 1 notebook, and a plastic bag. We sent out around 100 sets to the elementary school of Oguis, where my mother taught.

2016 Fifth Year

This year (2016), the set of school supplies includes 2 pencils, 1 notebook, 2 pad papers, 1 eraser, and 1 sharpener. We have already sorted out and prepared 1,000 sets for the school children of four to five elementary schools in Catanduanes.

First Year

The first recipient schools for this initiative was Oguis Elementary School - where my mom used to teach. All enrolled students were given a notebook, pencils and a plastic bag - to protect the materials from the rain.

Second Year

Because of the success of the first project, the head teacher also requested us to distribute another batch of school materials to two other primary schools - Sipi Elementary School and Sibacungan Elementary School.

Third Year

The following school year, an additional primary school was also given the same set of materials - Batalay Elementary School.

Fourth Year

On the fourth year, Bote Elementary School was added to the growing numbers of elementary schools as recipients of these school supplies

... and we will add more as our school supplies increase ...