When class started early this month, 12-year-old Lovely Mae was expecting to return to her old daily routine—wake up at 4 a.m., cross streams, and tread rocky uphill trails in order to get to the school before the flag-raising ceremony.
“We need to come to school early because we still have to clean the classrooms and the surroundings before the flag ceremony starts,” shared Lovely Mae, a sixth grade student who takes a two-hour walk to school every day.
This year, however, proved to be less tiring for her and fellow students as Vivant Foundation Inc. (VFI) chose their school, Kang-Atis Elementary School located in a far-flung barangay in Cebu City, as one of its four beneficiaries for this year’s Brigada Eskwela program. VFI is the corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm of the publicly-listed energy company Vivant Corp.
“Brigada Eskwela serves as an ideal avenue for our employee volunteerism programs in our company where employees don’t just actively participate but also strongly lead the activities,” said VFI executive director Shem Jose Garcia.
At least 83 percent of the company’s total number of employees volunteered for Brigada Eskwela.
The volunteers were composed of four different groups, which raised their own funds and submitted proposals to VFI to get additional funding of P75,000.00 from the company for each recipient school.
Apart from Kang-Atis, other beneficiary-schools were Pungtod National High School in Oslob, Cebu; Calidngan Elementary School in Carcar City, Cebu; and Mascap Elementary School in Rizal, Manila.
Volunteers took part in cleaning and repairing classrooms as well as some construction work. School supplies, classroom appliances, and extra construction materials for future repairs were donated.
This year’s Brigada was the first and the start of what VFI eyes to be an annual employee volunteerism activity.
“Vivant is committed in helping school children get quality education through supporting programs that will benefit them. Through the company’s CSR program, employees are given hands-on experience not only in participating but in leading community partnerships,” said Garcia.
Source: Sunstar Cebu
