MacQuarie partners with AHON in adopting a school

Posted by Herbel Santiago on 17 October 2011 | 1 Comments

What a school thinks about its library is a measure of what it thinks about education

By HERBEL SANTIAGO (Contributor)
October 16, 2011, 8:00am
Manila Bulletin

MANILA, Philippines — The above saying by Harold Howe now adorns the newly-refurbished library of Sagad Elementary School in Pasig, AHON Foundation’s 48th adopted library, to echo the school’s belief in the important role of libraries in improving students’ literacy rate. AHON stands for Acts of Hope for the Nation.

Sagad Elementary School is a one-building school with more than a thousand students. Due to the school’s limited resources, school officials and students lament about the lack of a fully-functional learning resource center.

Recognizing this, AHON Foundation worked with the hardworking principal, faculty members, parents, and even students in order to refurbish the library. MacQuarie Group, a global provider of banking, financial, advisory, investment, and funds management services, partnered with AHON Foundation on this project. MacQuarie Group conducted a mini-concert to raise funds. For two Saturdays, MacQuarie employees came to the small public school to help teachers and parents in painting the walls, building new bookshelves, and designing the library.

Encouraged by the overwhelming support, AHON’s second partner school in Pasig mobilized the whole community and transform the narrow and dark library to a beautiful and child-friendly space conducive to reading and learning. Its previous contents, mostly condemned and outdated textbooks, were replaced by books donated by MacQuarie and AHON Foundation, including the the TimeLife hardbound and interactive reference books in English, Math and Sciences which are worth almost half a million.

Philanthropy and progress

Last August 20, Sagad Elementary School finally inaugurated the library.

“We are very thankful dahil tayo ang napili ng AHON Foundation at MacQuarie. With God’s grace, we now have a new library that will be very beneficial to our students. Sana dumami pa ang mga katulad ninyo,” a very grateful Ms. Editha Tolop, the principal of the school, said. “In return, sa tulong ng aming Library Club composed of our students, we will make sure that the love for reading will be propagated among our students.”

The occasion was attended by the Division Superintendent of Pasig, Dr. Florentina Lizano, Garry Taylor, the country manager of MacQuarie Group in the Philippines, Lewis Edwards and Ms. Valerie Valeña, both member of the board of trustees of AHON Foundation.

“In AHON, we believe that we can help improve the literacy rate of the Filipino children through the development of libraries. But we want it to be a community effort. Congratulations to all of us. We only ask one thing, please let the students read the books”, said Mr. Edwards in conclusion.

Like MacQuarie’s outreach program, AHON Foundation is Filway Marketing Inc’s social responsibility arm, albeit a more focused and organized program. Filway is the exclusive distributor of TimeLife books in the Philippines.

To provide better services to our partner schools, AHON Foundation is open for partnerships with corporations. We also accept donations in cash and in kind. To know more about AHON, you may check out our FB page, AHON Foundation, and website, www.ahonfoundation.org. You may also call us at 990-0928 or send an e-mail at ahonfoundation@yahoo.com.

(Herbel Santiago works as the program officer of AHON Foundation.)