BAGUIO, Philippines – In far-flung areas, especially in remote mountain villages, students have to walk hours to get to school. This is a situation that many hikers are well aware of, as they sometimes stay in these schools located in high altitudes.
“Sometimes, their parents cannot afford to provide them with school supplies, so they are discouraged from attending school,” Angie Tan, team leader and project coordinator of the BigBrother BigSister (BBBS) Community Outreach Programme, said.
BBBS started when a group of dedicated mountaineers, Tan among them, brainstormed about going beyond just hiking for the weekend.
They found that not only did they all enjoy disconnecting from their hectic work week, mostly in Metro Manila, but also craved to do more for the people they met in the villages where they would hike and camp.
Since 2005, BBBS has held outreach activities annually. They have distributed school bags with enough school supplies for one year to remote communities in Abra, Albay, Aurora, Benguet, Camarines Sur, Ilocos, Ifugao, Kalinga, La Union, Marinduque, Mindoro, and Quezon.
They had to take a break from 2020 to 2023 due to the pandemic. But this year, they pushed through with a long-delayed trip to Nagtipunan, Quirino. In the process, they have reached more than 10,000 students.
In the summer of 2005, BBBS organized a climb to Mount Ugo in Itogon, Benguet. Ugo is one of the more famous mountains that a local mountaineer is sure to add to her bucket list.
To prepare for the activity, a core group visited the area to coordinate with the local government, public school officials, and community representatives. They figured out the logistics: they had to plan three trail routes to cater to differing volunteers’ levels of experience.
With donations they collected, the group purchased school bags which they filled with notebooks, pens, pencils, erasers, and papers — all necessities as suggested by the community school teachers. Then the volunteers repacked the donations according to grade level.
The BBBS core group held an orientation on hiking for all participants: what to bring, how to pack properly to waterproof their things, and what to expect on the trip.
The initial group consisted of about 90 participants, a combination of active mountaineers and their friends and families, many of whom were embarking on their first trek up a mountain.
They planned the route so that they could distribute bags along the way. The first-time mountaineers were given only two school bags to carry while the more experienced hikers carried up to 10 school bags. They carried with them lists of students from each school.
They made each distribution gathering interactive. The volunteers held games with the children.
Recalling that time, Jonalyn Hilario, a parent from the Lusod Community School in Itogon, talked about the impact of donations.
“Ang amin pong mga anak ay ganado, excited pong pumasok sa paaralan dahil po sa kanilang bagong bag, at mga gamit pampaaralan,” said Hilario.
“Sa tulong po ng inyong donasyon, nagagawa na pong maayos ang kanilang mga gawain sa school maging ang takdang aralin po nila. Sa aming mga magulang malaki pong tulong ang donasyon po ninyo dahil kahit papaano hindi na po kami namomroblema sa mga gamit nilang pampaaralan lalo’t kapos din po dahil sa kahirapan sa buhay.”
(Our children were motivated and excited to go to school because of their new bags and school supplies. Because of your donations, they are able to complete school requirements and homework. For us parents, this is a big help because at least we don’t have to worry about their things since it’s hard to make a living.)
Things have improved considerably in the almost 20 years that they have been doing this.
They have at least migrated communication channels: from emails to Viber and Facebook groups, and have improved in organizing the activities to maximize time and resources.
BBBS is now an SEC-registered non-profit organization, which makes transactions with volunteers and donors more transparent. Donations have also come from outside the Philippines, mostly referrals of former or present volunteers, but some, just from people who see their posts online.
Being a completely voluntary endeavor, BBBS only collects fees from participants for transportation and guide fees during the distribution weekend, when they hike with the supplies.
But in a way, weekends remained the same, with each activity taking up a weekend — and sometimes extending up to Monday morning — before the school year officially commenced.
One of their most memorable trips was to Tanudan, Kalinga, said Tan. The villages were not accessible by bus or jeepney, so they coordinated with the local government to borrow two dump trucks to transport the volunteers with the supplies.
They had to stand shoulder to shoulder aboard the trucks as they traversed rough roads before getting to the jump-off point. The situation was made more challenging when it started to rain.
“The road was very muddy and the wheels of the trucks got buried deep in mud, so we had to alight several times and a few of us worked together to get the trucks out,” Tan recalled. What was supposed to be a six-hour ride stretched to 10 hours.
Yet, Tan said, many volunteers come back again year after year.
“The time and effort may be tiring, but it is very fulfilling to see the children and their parents so happy. It doesn’t seem like work.“
BBBS takes up about half a year to prepare, starting with the ocular visit to their chosen site on the first weekend of January. After the distribution activity, they hold a debriefing party to recognize all those who were involved and to evaluate the activity.
The rest of the year, Tan is involved in training new mountaineers as part of the AMCI Mountaineering Club. “We teach them the basics, including how and what to pack, and increase their stamina through different activities.”
The course consists of training twice a week and one climb each month. Their culminating activity is a five-day graduation climb.
In many cases, Tan and many of the same volunteers go back to some of the villages and are able to see how their small effort creates a chain effect.
“It encourages communities to initiate their own projects to keep the children in school — whether initiated by local officials or groups of parents,” said Tan. “The community motivates the children to continue to study and finish their education.”
BBBS, which convenes during summer months, continues to mobilize resources to motivate more students to complete their education and explore more opportunities to uplift their future. – Rappler.com
