A commitment to help educate

Our column followers have read about quite a few companies’ corporate social responsibility projects and it is our pleasure to write about and also feature on TV and online the laudable efforts to raise awareness about noteworthy projects. It is their way of giving back and we hope it inspires more corporations to emulate and initiate their own CSR projects in their communities.

MoneyGram is a company that most of our kababayans know of, most especially our OFWs and their families.  This money remittance company has a presence in countries where there is a large concentration of Filipino workers.  Their MoneyGram Foundation has been set up with a special focus on education, and they have set it up as a worldwide program to benefit thousands of school children in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Mexico, to name a few.  Earlier, they partnered with 27 organizations in 19 countries and this year, this number has ballooned to 60 organizations in 60 countries. They have given grants worth over $3 million to schools in Nepal, initiated literacy programs in Haiti, sponsored e-reader programs in Ghana and supported a mobile science laboratory in India.  Indeed, it is world-wide program dedicated to supporting the education of marginalized students.

Here at home, they have also forged strategic partnerships with Books for Asia, Habitat for Humanity and Black Pencil Project, among others. They have donated over 30,000 books to elementary, high school and even college schools, benefitting hundreds and hundreds of students, most of them from impoverished families. Schools in Pangasinan, the Rizal High School in Pasig, the UP system, schools in Cebu and Davao have received books from the Moneygram Foundation. 

From videos I have seen, the foundation officials went personally to these schools, sometimes crossing streams on board their pick-up trucks to deliver the books to the students.  These are not old books but new ones, the latest editions in fact and very relevant books sourced from the McGraw-Hill publishers in the US. These are books for pre-school children, elementary and high school students, books on Management, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, you name it. What is heartening to see is how the foundation officials relish the task of sharing and how many of their employees have embraced the project and continue to support it, giving their time and boundless efforts to give their personal share in the project.  The company officials encourage their employees to volunteer their time for these missions and their employees have imbibed the value of sharing.

This year, we learned from MoneyGram Philippines country manager, Alex Chan Lim that they are already preparing for the next phase of their book sharing project with their latest undertaking — a mobile library that they will park in selected schools.  Students can use this facility for research or just to enjoy reading and learning from the varied selection of books made available to them in the mobile library.  Later, the same books will be donated to the students as they prepare the next batch of books for the library on wheels.

From studies the foundation has undertaken, only 65 out of a hundred children are able to finish school due to abject poverty, which is why the company has chosen education as the main focus of the foundation’s efforts.  They have partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build new classrooms especially in far flung areas. With the devastation wrought by Typhoon Yolanda in the Visayas a couple of years back, the foundation was there in no time to rebuild battered classrooms where possible and build new ones. The foundation was in Capiz and Bohol for this undertaking and they are particularly proud of Noah’s Ark, the prototype of a classroom they built that can serve as a temporary shelter in case of calamities. Inside, there is a rest room, pantry and wash area, a haven for many school children in public schools who endure cramped, make-shift classroom facilities in typhoon-prone areas in the Visayas and Mindanao regions.

Their partnership with Black Pencil Project, on the other hand, has allowed them to donate school supplies to needy children in the countryside. These young children in Bantayan Island in Cebu, in Tanay and in the Mountain Province had the widest smiles on their faces as they received their very own brand new school bags filled with basic school supplies. Most of the children go to school without pencils, let alone their own school bags.  I’ve seen children toting used plastic bags, the kind they give out in supermarkets, to carry their books and supplies to school, so I imagine that having a clean school bag is an experience they will forever cherish. The MoneyGram employees who handed out the bags to each and every student in a classroom were equally elated to bring the good tidings to the unfortunate students who went home that day to share the good news to their families.

Not too many know of these ongoing projects. I also didn’t know about it until I saw the videos they shared with us for a TV and Online feature we did on them, but slowly the good news is spreading. I understand that the company has been receiving requests for funding to build more classrooms and for donations of books and school supplies for many public school students. The focus has always been on public school students because they are the ones who need the support most. The foundation officials will evaluate these requests and act accordingly.

In the meantime, more and more needy school children continue to benefit from the goodwill of MoneyGram Foundation. We wish them well and congratulate the company for their contribution to education efforts across the globe.

Mabuhay!!!  Be proud to be a Filipino.

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