Monday, 6th September …..

We’ve been here for 4 or 5 days and we haven’t yet been to Hope Intervention Center so, as there was nothing else planned, today is the day.

We had heard that there had been some improvements since we were last here in January 2008 and we were delighted to see that the school is looking great. A second storey has been added to the main building to provide a Lifestyle Center for the parents of the children and other local residents. The intention is to offer training in areas which might provide skills to make getting employment easier. The Center was built with a 4-million peso grant from the City Government and will be managed by the Rotary Club. They have already ordered 6 new high-speed sewing machines which can be used for rug-making and will offer courses in Auto-Cad for High School students.

A roof has been built to cover the space between the main school building and the library, and the whole property has been fenced. All-in-all, the school looks prosperous and efficient.

There were two groups of children at the school when we arrived. We sat first with a group of ten students who were working through a lesson in identifying taste. The teacher, Edwin, had cleverly tied it in with a gross-motor exercise and everyone was involved.

Next door, nine children were having a snack of boiled egg and rice. It was intended to encourage the children to accept a wider range of food but one or two students were not happy. One of the boys was refusing to take food from the teacher and insisted on eating the rice himself, one grain at a time. It became a real wrestling match (the boy won).

Teacher Nene had sent out for a snack for Marilyn and me – hamburgers and large coke. I was just about to take a bite from my burger when a hand shot out `and grabbed a chunk of it. One of the boys was so fast that no-one even saw it happening. The teachers were mortified but Marilyn wanted to reward the enterprise and left her hamburger for the boy, Angelo, to have when school was over.

Enrolments at the school have risen to 70 students and there is a long waiting list. They have frequent visitors wanting to observe and get ideas and there are moves afoot to start similar schools in other areas. Marilyn and I will be traveling to Naga next week to talk to Rotarians and teachers there about possibilities. Who knows, we might be visiting the Philippines for years to come.