Coming: Schools from container vans

A British non-government organization (NGO) may have a solution to the Philippines’ chronic shortage of classrooms, especially in Metro Manila’s poorest areas: school buildings made from container vans.

In a recent exclusive interview with The STAR, Jill Beckingham, wife of British Ambassador Peter Beckingham, and who currently works with the Philippine Christian Foundation (PCF) and the Philippine Community Fund, disclosed the plan to build the country’s first school buildings from container vans that could help provide classrooms for up to 1,000 elementary and high school children each year.

All the British NGO would need to start the ball rolling is a piece of land, rent-free, on which the school buildings could be built.

But for some reason, Beckingham told The STAR, the National Housing Authority (NHA), the government agency tasked to distribute government land, has rejected the plan for unknown reasons.

Although the plan would cost the Philippine government nothing, since all materials — including the container vans, construction resources, funding and other costs — would be provided free through donations, the NHA has failed to provide the PCF with a site to build the school.

According to Mrs. Beckingham, the PCF plans to build a 1,000-square-meter, two-story schoolbuilding using a total of 28 40-foot container vans that would be donated by the Singapore-based APL Shipping Co. Two other 20-foot container vans would be used to construct a one-story caretaker’s house. The company that designed the plans is the Schema Konsult Inc.

The construction of the school building using the container vans would take about six months, with a cost of about P20 million to P30 million. Construction of the foundation alone would cost P8 million.

The PCF, which organizes, builds and funds private schools for the poorest of the poor, was established three years ago by a Briton named Jane Walker.

Mrs. Beckingham joined the group one and a half years ago and has continued Walker’s mission. The NGO also has Filipino members who help run a school established by Walker three years ago in Tondo’s Smokey Mountain area.

As far back as 1998, Walker began work here by establishing a school before PCF was even organized called The Navotas Cemetery School, located in a public cemetery in San Jose, Navotas. The PCF carried on the funding and management of the school in 2003.

The PCF also established a similar school at the Baguio dumpsite in June 2003, and then opened a school at a squatter area in Bacolod in June 2004.

Walker, who is now chief executive officer and board trustee of PCF, is scheduled to visit Manila on July 18.

Beckingham said the school in Tondo, like previous ones, would offer free education to approximately 1,000 elementary and high school students, provide free lunches every school day through their feeding program, along with free school supplies, free uniforms and even free shoes.

She said a livelihood program would also be established so that many of the local children, aged six years and up, will not have to return to work collecting salvage materials at the dumpsites of Tondo.

Beckingham noted that even select parents who lack education would be eligible to receive adult education for free.

"There’s also going to be livelihood. The livelihood program will be for the parents and also for the children because they have to find another way of living rather just working in the dumps," she said.

PCF is funding special classes for children, starting with those aged six up to 14 or 15, to give them elementary education, and eventually offering high school education in the future.

Beckingham said because of the many benefits provided by the PCF-built schools, many children and parents are expressing keen interest in attending. However, all families would have to undergo a "means test" to determine their income and financial capability.

"So if you’ve got two adult people in your family who are earning a living, you are not really poor enough, and could not qualify," she noted.

"All of these children attending these schools have either got one parent, disabled parents, sickness in the family, abandoned children like those living with other families such as relatives, or belonging to a big family like five children or more.

"There are lots of children here who want to go to school but we can’t take them all. So Jane decided that we should take the poorest," added Beckingham.

She also pointed out that absolutely no funding would have to come from the Philippine government, except help through donations or through free use of the land on which the schools are to be built.

"The funding comes from donations and also comes from a lot of people in Britain who sponsor children. The sponsorship is 12.50 British pounds a month per child. That’s about P1,200 a month," noted Beckingham.

The PCF plans to relocate the children from the Philippine Christian Foundation Tondo School in Smokey Mountain to the proposed container van-constructed school, if the NGO is allowed to build on land in Tondo. Classes at the Tondo school are scheduled to begin on July 3.

The Tondo school is located in an abandoned warehouse with an area of about 4,000 square meters. It now provides classrooms for about 320 elementary school children from nursery level to Grade 3, and about 20 adult students, all residents of Smokey Mountain. Some even live on the dumpsite, Beckingham said.

"The children work in the afternoon if they go to school in the morning, while the others work in the morning if the go to school in the afternoon. So a lot of them are very tired since they have a long day.

"They all do work in the dumpsite. Even the little ones, some are just seven years old," she said.

The building in Smokey Mountain now being used for the Tondo school is an abandoned warehouse owned by the government, and managed by the NHA.

The warehouse has been converted into a school, with a number of classrooms, a feeding room, a library and a principal’s office. The group was allowed to "borrow" the building three years ago without having to pay rent.

However, since the building was abandoned, it has a dilapidated structure. Floodwaters pour in during rainy season, the roof leaks, and there is sometimes no electricity. The security and safety of the children are also at risk because of the decrepit condition of the warehouse. Robbery also occurred recently in the building, with some of the furniture and supplies stolen.

The original plan was to seek a 20-year lease on the warehouse in order to renovate it, provide proper ventilation and complete other work.

"But I don’t think we will be allowed to have a 20-year lease on it," Beckingham said. "We tried. They always have great plans for this area, that it’s going to be sold, that it’s going to be a wonderful port area. But who’s going to invest in this?"

The warehouse, called the Helping Building, was built by the Helping Foundation set up by the wife of former President Fidel Ramos, Amelita "Ming" Ramos.

"She set this up for NGOs to come in. We managed to use the building. The first plan was to renovate. But the building became more and more dilapidated. Last year, we had great trouble with the electricity because all the electricity cables were being taken by the squatters along the road. We were paying but we were not getting any electricity," she said.

Beckingham said the NHA told them to start making alternative plans.

"So, this first plan was for 3,000 square meters. But we will never be allowed 3,000 square meters. So we made plans for 1,000 square meters. We can build a school that will house elementary and high school, and also a livelihood (program). It’s just a matter of getting the land. But we would love to have 3,000 square meters," she emphasized.

The NHA has the authority to subdivide some of the land used for permanent housing in Paradise Heights where the PCF wants to build the container van schools.

But, when they last checked, the NHA had already subdivided the proposed land for other beneficiaries.  

The NHA allotted 2,000 square meters for a Catholic church, another 2,000 square meters for Gawad Kalinga for a preschool, and about 800 square meters for an ecological park. It said there was no land was left for the PCF’s school building.

"If this does not happen, maybe we could ask Gawad Kalinga if we can use some of their rooms. But it’s a bit difficult because they have lots of NGOs wanting to use their space," she said.

"We’ve got to move quickly. If we can’t get land here, Jane has got a plan perhaps in Baguio since she has another school on the dumpsite in Baguio. Hopefully, this could be done within the year," she said.

Funding for the construction will hopefully be acquired through fund-raising activities. Recently, a British citizen, wishing to remain anonymous, donated $10,000 for the construction, said Beckingham.

Other projects underway by the PCF are a filtration system in Smokey Mountain, and a free jeepney shuttle service for students in the Tondo school.

"We need more teachers," Beckingham noted. "But hopefully we would be able to get more sponsorships. It’s just starting-up costs that are going to be so big. But we can do it. We’ve got to be positive. We can make a difference. We can start the school," said Beckingham.

For her part, Maria Fe Singson, project and office manager of the Philippine Christian Foundation, said the parents of the Tondo school make a living as scavengers. Some have permanent housing, while others live in temporary housing.

Singson said before the students are admitted, they will be given diagnostic skill tests, to identify their ability to learn to read and write.

Classes in Tondo are in two shifts. For the nursery level it’s two and a half hours. For the elementary, the schedule is from 7 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. They have their meals afterwards, consisting of rice, meat and vegetables.

The second shift is from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., after lunchtime is finished. The children are picked up by a jeepney shuttle service from their residence to the school and also brought home afterwards.

Some are fetched from Smokey Mountain, Singson said.

"Some parents do not care if their children go to school or not, so we have to provide transportation for them to make sure they go to school," said Singson.

Just recently, the United Kingdom donated about 100 tables to the foundation for use of this Tondo school. Other donations have poured in during the last three years since the school opened.

They have also organized a livelihood program in which parents make bracelets and necklaces to sell.

In the past, the Tondo school building almost went up in a blaze after a fire started in a nearby area called Happy Land.

Currently, the Tondo school has seven teachers, one registrar, one principal, four feeding staff, one driver, one janitor, one nurse and one social worker, said Singson. Hopefully, they said, more teachers would be hired soon.