School rallies parents, kids to act on global issues

Along with educators from across the United States and six other countries, Jennifer Mapua-Banal, directress of Second Mom-Domuschola, attended the International Studies Summer Institute for Educators at Indiana University. They tackled a variety of international issues and examined a wide range of academic themes including global climate change, migration issues worldwide, models of conflict resolution, global food security and international economics.

The up-to-date content and methodologies gained at the institute were not only passed on to Second Mom-Domuschola students but likewise shared with their parents, thus, reinforcement of things learned in school is done at home. Domuschola (domus, latin word for home and schola for school) strongly believes that education should be a collaborative effort of both the home and the school.

Second Mom-Domuschola has launched “One Family, One Planet”, a pioneering inter-disciplinary environmental sustainability program, whose primary objective is to further enrich the children’s knowledge and sensitivities to highly critical environmental issues affecting our lives and the planet’s ecology.

The campaign would be integrated into the students’ daily curriculum, and would galvanize the students’ interest in socio-economic and scientific inquiry, through experiential actions. These small actions would undoubtedly equip the students with the requisite life skills they would need once they leave the safety of their homes.

Spearheaded by parents and assisted by teachers, the program aims to provide the students with an in depth look at the many environmental crisis affecting their lives (and those of their family members and communities) in very significant ways.

The parents believe that if we don’t educate the children now, then when? Who will? They all vowed to take action now and make a difference.