Share your blessings, pay it forward through BancNet

Today, tens of thousands of children are deprived of education just because they are poor. Poverty has driven them out of the classrooms and into labor force where they are sometimes exposed to harsh surroundings and environments not even suitable for adults.

And even if public schools offer free education, most of these impoverished children find it hard to attend classes without money for their everyday baon, school supplies and other needs.

Visual impairment has also prevented thousands of children from going to school. Instead of learning inside the classrooms, blind children are often left inside the house to fend for themselves while their sighted siblings and friends go off to school.

Even though most blind children have normal intelligence and an eagerness to learn, lack of education will eventually make them illiterate, blind adults someday.

You can make a big difference in the lives of these less fortunate and visually impaired children simply by sharing your financial blessings and making a donation of any amount to World Vision Philippines and Resources for the Blind, Inc. (RBI).

World Vision Philippines helps more than 122,000 children in 34 provinces and 22 cities through child sponsorship which has successfully addressed the poverty-stricken children’s lack of education.

RBI is a non-profit charitable organization devoted to removing the obstacles that prevent blind Filipinos from reaching their fullest potential. It is involved in counseling, rehabilitation, education, and training, as well as in preventing blindness and in restoring sight whenever possible.

Through the initiative of BancNet member PSBank, more than 2,000 BancNet ATMs nationwide are now accepting contributions to these charitable institutions that will go a long way towards providing the needy children with decent education and new hope for a bright future.

This is PSBank’s way of encouraging and offering simpler ways for its customers and more than four million BancNet cardholders to become involved in charity work.

To further cultivate the spirit of “paying it forward” among its depositors, PSBank has also partnered with the two charitable institutions for its “Save It Forward” scholarship program.

Through “Save It Forward”, 100 PSBank depositors can have the chance to become child sponsors. In their behalf, PSBank will pay for the completion of either the elementary or high school education of their chosen child either at World Vision or RBI.

“Save It Forward” also gives the lucky depositors a chance to win one (or more) of 100 1-year educational scholarships (SY 2009-2010) by simply maintaining their peso and dollar savings, or peso checking accounts. The scholarships, worth up to P100,000 each, cover grade school to college.