SCHOOL BUILDING PROGRAM
IN AREAS of education, SM Foundation is helping improve children’s access to quality education through a two-pronged approach: the construction of school buildings in public elementary and high schools nationwide, and a scholarship program that grants matriculation assistance to deserving indigent students in both academic and technical-vocational disciplines.
Among the latest schools that have benefited from the first approach is the Macasandig Elementary School in Cagayan de Oro. Barely a month after SM Foundation turned over a brandnew, two-storey, four classroom building to the school on November 2017, Typhoon Vinta devastated the city with torrential rains that caused widespread flooding. Around 140 families from different barangays in the city evacuated to the school and about 28 families occupied the new school buildings, staying there from Dec. 22, 2017 to Jan. 2, 2018, thus spending the Holiday Season there.
The families that occupied the new school buildings were the luckiest because the rooms were clean and spacious. It has a toilet, four electric fans, and several electrical outlets, allowing the evacuees to charge their electrical devices, listen to news reports, and sleep comfortably inside the classrooms. SM Foundation also distributed relief packs to the evacuees during the course of their stay. When classes resumed, the evacuees returned to their homes, and students were able to use their classrooms again.
Since the foundation began its School Building Program 15 years ago, it has now built 87 school buildings with a total of 276 classrooms that benefit more than 16,200 students nationwide. The school buildings that are donated by SM Foundation are equipped with student desks including those for left-handed students, electric fans, curved-type blackboards, and toilet for each classroom. It is also provided with PWD-friendly comfort rooms.
Moreover, aside from constructing new buildings, the foundation has also returned to recipient schools to repair classrooms it had previously donated. And, apart from constructing and repairing school buildings, it has also donated books, computers, school supplies, and other educational materials to its beneficiaries.
“SM’s goal is for every child to have a properly furnished classroom where they can learn and achieve their dreams. By providing the ideal learning environment for public elementary and high school students, we help narrow the gap in the delivery of quality education, ensuring significant improvements in the students’ academic performance, creativity and productivity and the quality of teaching the students receive,” said SM Foundation executive director Deborah Pe-Sy.
“SM’s goal is for every child to have a properly furnished classroom where they can learn and achieve their dreams.”