4Ps reach home-based centers

CEBU, Philippines - Thirty-two-year-old Raquel Samili thought she’d seen it all. Living most of her life in barangay Mambaling, Raquel has witnessed over the years how poverty spun its vicious cycle from generation to generation creating depression among couples, ignorance among children and chaos among community but this did not stop her in believing in the system, in the power of dreams and confidence in one’s ability. Thus she became a teacher.

Teaching did not just become her profession, it became her passion and the 60 students ages three to four years old under her tutelage gave her a sense of fulfillment and the feeling of being able to make a difference every after session.

A year ago, this was not the hopeful scene one would meet in the home-based daycare sessions of Ms. Raquel. Home-based daycare per guideline should not exceed more than 15 students per session and a year ago excess students was never a problem for Raquel because she had less students.

“When families became part of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) there was a dramatic increase in the number of students enrolled in daycare centers and its overflow of enrollees extend to the home-based daycare. Attitude and participation of parents especially mothers has also improved a lot,” Raquel said.

“Whereas before the teachers would have to do a lot of convincing to the parents in order for them to allow their children to attend daycare, now parents insist on letting their kids attend daycare especially home-based since they cannot anymore be accommodated at the local daycare centers whose population has tremendously increased. Enrollees doubled for this year because I now have at least 32 students per session,” she added.

This increase is because of the conditions stipulated under the 4Ps program of DSWD to let the children of beneficiaries’ ages three to five years old attend daycare or pre-school classes at least 85 percent of the time.

“I believe every parent wants their children to go to school but the fear and shame of not being able to provide the very basic school needs (such as crayons and paper) just as their parents did to them, it is what they are doing to their children, thus the cycle continues,” Raquel said.

“Now, with 4Ps, mothers are very confident in letting their children attend home-based daycare program and very proud because they were able to provide for their children’s needs. This is indeed good news, it means that families now understand the significance of education. Hopefully the future for these children is a lot brighter than their predecessors,” she further said. — /MEEV   (FREEMAN NEWS)