HSBC’s soft touch

There were no long speeches and no ribbon-cutting when President Macapagal-Arroyo visited the Esteban Abada Elementary School last July 11.

We wanted to give the President more time to look around the public school located in a depressed area of Quezon City. In the computer room, Grade 4 students were solving math problems while others were surfing the Net. In the library, a group of Grade 1 students were huddled in a corner listening to a story from Teacher Grace, the librarian. When the children saw the President, they asked for a story and the President gamely sat on a bean bag and read from a pop-up book on dinosaurs.

What President Arroyo didn’t see on such a brief visit was how every child learned a new word in their daily five-minute oral language drills. How all school work is displayed on cross wires in each classroom. How teachers are using the blackboard less and, on "chalk-free" days, not at all. How the cooperative learning set-up helps students to solve problems on their own. How each child spends at least 30 minutes a week in the library, in the computer room and in the toy library. How children can take home books as often as they want. How slowly these children are gaining the motivation and the confidence to excel.

Latest beneficiary

The Esteban Abada Elementary School is an under-performing public school with a student population of 2,000 students. It is the first school under the model-of-excellence program of the Books for the Barrios USA (BftB) which is funded by a private donor.

HSBC first heard about BftB’s program two years ago. We were then working with the Philippine School for the Deaf on a pre-school and special education center to provide hearing-impaired children, aged 2-6, with quality early intervention facilities.

A non-profit, all-volunteer corporation, BftB has been distributing hundreds of tons of books and materials gathered in the United States to public schools in the Philippines. It also runs the MOEs for 34 other public schools, which are being developed into world-class learning centers.

Hands-on approach

As in all our business dealings, HSBC takes a hands-on approach in our work in the community. In identifying projects, we consult government agencies, non-governmental organizations and schools. We look for programs that are relevant and will directly benefit children. We personally visit schools, commission the necessary services and monitor developments and support work by staff volunteers.

When HSBC chief executive officer Paul Lawrence turned over our donation last July 11, it was not his first visit to the Esteban Abada Elementary School. He had been to the school last year, when it had no computer facilities and when a dark room with a tall glass cabinet containing old books constituted the library.

What HSBC has done for Esteban Abada was to build a foundation for a better school, to provide the first crucial steps towards becoming an MOE school. We funded the construction of a library, a computer room and a pres-school facility. We supplied child-friendly furniture-open, accessible shelves for the library, colorful six-seater tables for classrooms, bean bags for reading corners, computer tables and benches.

For the computer room, we bought 28 brand-new computers with pre-paid internet access for the next five years. Each pre-school room as well as the library was provided with a computer.

We partnered with BftB for the shipment of more than 400 boxes of books and materials gathered from schoolchildren, libraries and publishers in the US and complemented these with a collection of children’s books written by and for Filipinos. We also sponsored training seminars for teachers on new teaching strategies and methods.

Volunteers

HSBC was not alone in transforming the school. Bank staff volunteers devoted their weekends sorting books, setting up computers and painting walls. Customers forfeited gifts earned with their credit card "reward" points to make donations. Members of the school’s parents association painted the perimeter fence, planted more greens, and cleaned up the grounds.

In building an MOE school, we saw what government, the private sector and the local community can do if we worked together for a common goal.

At HSBC, we believe that sharing our success is the right thing to do. Our work in education and in the environment spans 79 countries where we do business. We believe support for primary education, especially for the underprivileged, is important to any country’s future and development. We believe that caring for the environment ensures a better life for future generations.

In our community work in the Philippines, we realize that we will never be able to help all those in need and we will never feel that we have done enough. But when our efforts are added to so many other companies working for the same causes, the result is something greater and bigger for the community.