MSU-IIT NMPC Answered Request for a School Feeding Program and a Child-Savings Program Literacy through Aflatoun

JULY 31, 2014 – MSU-IIT NMPC Marketing staffs traveled the outskirts of Brgy. Digkilaan to the remote area of Benito S. Ong Memorial School to provide children rations and to teach them the value of savings through the Aflatoun Program. The staffs got to the place as a given response to the school’s need to address to its stakeholders the pressing problem of the kids going to school with empty stomachs. Mrs. Julme Paquit, one of the school’s teachers, asked for assistance from the cooperative to aid the school in feeding the children – as it is the school’s challenge to encourage its students to come to school in spite of the community’s lack of resources to supplement its youth’s basic needs such as food. The help given out by the cooperative proved to be a stepping stone in reaching nearly-isolated areas to give help and provide cooperative education. What turned out to be a mere request for a feeding assistance paved way for the school to adapt the ideas of Aflatoun as it was introduced to the school’s representative (Mrs. Paquit) weeks before the actual feeding took place.

The staff arrived on the morning of the same date, bringing with them boxes filled with coin banks, Aflatoun reading materials, Pakigsayud booklets and additional foods to be handed out to the students, having crossed a painstaking but exciting shallow river before arriving at the school’s doorsteps.

Almost immediately students flocked into masses as the staff and the school personnel hurried to the stage to prepare for the launching of the savings program. The area’s lack of electric power forced the staff to commence on modulated voices. Mr. Aldrin R. Loyola of the Head Office’s Marketing Department conducted the launching to the children numbering to 248 individuals. Origins and concepts of the Aflatoun were discussed and interactions with the children were shared. The kids were anxious yet happy of the coop’s proposition to start their own savings in their own simple means. Before the program would come to an end, all of the 248 students were given a 30-minute break to make their own “fireball-designed Aflatoun” in an on-the-spot drawing activity. The activity opened the students’ minds into sharing ideas with their fellow mates to make their own version of the Aflatoun – inspiring these young minds to make a great change in their lives amidst all the adversities their community have left with them.

Mr. Crisanto P. Encarnado, Tibanga Main’s Membership Development Officer, and Hallmark P. Mojica, Head Office Marketing Assistant, also conducted their own separate orientation to the parents on coop membership just as the children’s activity was still progressing.

After the launching of the Aflatoun, the kids were queued for the giving of rations. MSU-IIT COOP has donated an amount to the school to serve as expenses for the cooking of “arrozcaldo” paired with hard-boiled eggs. The staff also added 28 packs of biscuits to add to the children’s meal. One child after another turned around they bring with them plates full of the warm goodness. It is very obvious in the eyes of the parents and the children and most especially the school their great thanks to the coop’s generosity.

As the visit neared its end, fourteen kids were welcomed to the Aflatoun family and more have already prepared their pennies where they are facilitate by Mrs. Paquit.

It is fulfilling for the coop to be a part of social change. The continuing relationship between MSU-IIT NMPC and Benito S. Ong Memorial School will be a help to the students to make their small but thrifty acts become something bigger in the future.