(Project Prints for Kids is a donation campaign which aims to provide resources to public schools to help teachers in printing their modules.)

Teaching is considered to be one of the noblest professions.

There will be no other professions if not for our dearly beloved teachers.

While teaching is as gratifying as it is, it is also a difficult and a challenging task.

Teachers help mold a child’s future of whom and what they want to be.

Teachers of Sibacan and Bernardo Enriquez Elementary Schools and the volunteers of the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño de Cebu Creative Arts Ministry.  In a remote area located in Danao City, Cebu, we have met teachers who selflessly commit to their oath as educators.

They travel, rain or shine, just to report to class.

Bel, an elementary school teacher, shared that being assigned in a remote area is not easy.

She along with her co-teachers travels about forty-five minutes from the main highway going to the school to attend to her classes daily.

Bel said that they are handling more than one class or grade level as their school is adapting ‘combination classes.’

Ms. Marivel Villanueva, a teacher of Bernardo Enriquez Elementary School and a former beneficiary of the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño de Cebu Children’s Welfare Foundation, Inc.

In this time of the pandemic, the education sector has been greatly affected forcing classes to shift into the digital platform or through modular-type.

While this makeshift is a step not to stop students’ education and learning, it has also brought a huge weight to the parents, students and teachers.

One of the concerns most especially for public or government-run schools is the lack of resources for the printing of the class modules.

As response, the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño de Cebu with the help of the BMSN Creative Arts Ministry started an online campaign entitled, “Prints for Kids.”

The program aims to help pupils studying at the remote schools in Danao City for their distance learning.

The goal is to gather printing materials which will be used for the pupils’ different modules.

Through the efforts and support of the devotees of the Holy Child, the Basilica has gathered 200 reams of bond paper and has purchased one unit of printer.

Last Saturday, October 3, 2020, the printing materials were handed to the teachers of Sibacan and Bernardo Enriquez Elementary Schools.

The teachers expressed their heartfelt gratitude as it is of big help to their pupils.

When asked why they continue to teach despite the hardships, the teachers responded with smiles on their faces, “Tungod gyud sa among mga bata— mga estudyante.” (It is because of our kids— our students.)

Pupils cross this river just to attend their classes at Sibacan Elementary School.

To everyone who has helped in one way or another, thank you for making Project Prints for Kids possible.

As the line says, “The root of education is bitter yet the fruit is sweet.” (Glimpses)