Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and Miriam College president Dr. Patricia Licuanan signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) to implement he "Lingap Bulilit" project for the training of city daycare teachers.
"We try to involve those not working in government because we do not want to be left behind," Belmonte said during the MOA signing ceremony at City Hall’s Bulwagang Amoranto.
The mayor said Quezon City is a city of young people with many of the mothers having become principal providers in the family. "So we must improve our services to the young, especially the children at the daycare centers to also help the mothers."
The improvement of daycare centers is among the top priorities of the city government under the leadership of Belmonte.
"Our teachers are not experts, they are ordinary people, that is why we have this joint project with Miriam College, to improve their skills," he said.
He added that the city government has plans to increase the number of daycare centers in Quezon City.
Licuanan explained that the Lingap Bulilit project would train teachers of all the community daycare centers in Quezon City in the areas of child development, childhood care and education, and family and values to help them in their vital task.
Last year, Miriam College launched Lingap Bulilit in five partner-urban poor communities in Quezon City.
The project started with teacher training, which was conducted by experts and volunteer teachers from he Child Study Center, Child Education and Development Department and the Family and Values Program of Miriam College.
As a follow-up, classroom observations and mentoring sessions were also conducted.
Licuanan said it was Tess Mariano, city social services development department head, and an alumna of Miriam College, who suggested that "we expand the project to benefit all the daycare center teachers in the city, specifically through teacher training."
The project, which will run for two years, will train 38 day care teachers from District I, 58 from District 2A, 41 from District 2B, 36 from District 3, and 39 from District 4, or a total of 212 teachers.
The project will benefit about 30,000 pre-schoolers in Quezon City.
This school year, Miriam College, formerly known as Maryknoll, also launched Project SPEAK, or Serbisyong Publiko para sa Edukasyon at pag-Angat ng Kabataan, in partnership with the office of Vice Mayor Herbert Bautista.
Project SPEAK is an English training program.