PONTEVEDRA, Negros Occidental, Philippines—In the village of Zamora in this sugar town, the mothers no longer waste their time on gossip.
After doing their chores, they dress up, fix their hair, put on a little lipstick and gather at the Community Learning Center, where they make cassava cake and longganisa (sausage) or practice hair and beauty lessons on each other.
“Before, they didn’t make use of their spare time. When they finished their chores, they went to their neighbors’ and just gossiped. I was dismayed at the mothers because it was like they didn’t care if their children went to school or not,” said Lourdes Quisio, principal of the village elementary school.
“Now they are busy. I see them working at the Community Learning Center every afternoon, and they even ask me what to do next,” said Quisio, a mother of three.
As a result, life has become sweeter in Barangay Zamora, a remote village tucked amid hectare upon hectare of sugar fields some two hours from Bacolod City.
The turning point came in the form of empowering mothers who spurred an explosion of community support for a school that was about to shut down due to dwindling attendance.
Mostly stay-at-home wives of sugar plantation workers, some 60 mothers here have found something productive to do through livelihood programs under “Strive” (Strengthening Implementation of Basic Education in the Visayas).
An initiative of the Australian Agency for International Development and the Department of Education, Strive aims to improve access to education in schools with severe dropout rates through tailor-made programs that target entire communities.
Aiming for systems reform in struggling public schools, Strive provided some P800 million in financial grants and technical assistance to 308 schools and communities in Negros Occidental, Bohol, Northern Samar, Iloilo, Cebu and Tacloban.
For the Pontevedra school, reading improvement programs and providing transportation meant growing attendance by almost a full class, taking back the children from the sugar fields. From 141 students three years ago, the school year closed in March with 180 students, Quisio said.
Solutions under Strive go beyond the school grounds. In the case of Barangay Zamora, Strive involves the students’ mothers and gives them the means to make it through the non-earning months.
“The milling season here is from October to April. After that, we go hungry,” said barangay councilor Rolando Verona.
Now earning incomes during the off season, the mothers learned the salon package, from doing hair treatments to nail care, practicing their skills on each other.
As a happy consequence, the Zamora women have learned to groom themselves better, encouraging their husbands to come home earlier, noted Quisio.
“Dati hindi maganda asawa niyo. Ngayon mabango na (Before your wives weren’t pretty. Now they smell nice),” joked Verona, a bachelor, addressing the other men at the table during the interview.
Other women of the community were taught how to turn cassava into cake and how to make sausages or longganisa. The goods, promptly labelled and packaged for store shelves, are sold in neighboring towns and provinces.
“They saw for themselves that they had those skills and, because of that, they took more responsibility for their children,” Quisio said.
After doing their chores, they dress up, fix their hair, put on a little lipstick and gather at the Community Learning Center, where they make cassava cake and longganisa (sausage) or practice hair and beauty lessons on each other.
“Before, they didn’t make use of their spare time. When they finished their chores, they went to their neighbors’ and just gossiped. I was dismayed at the mothers because it was like they didn’t care if their children went to school or not,” said Lourdes Quisio, principal of the village elementary school.
“Now they are busy. I see them working at the Community Learning Center every afternoon, and they even ask me what to do next,” said Quisio, a mother of three.
As a result, life has become sweeter in Barangay Zamora, a remote village tucked amid hectare upon hectare of sugar fields some two hours from Bacolod City.
The turning point came in the form of empowering mothers who spurred an explosion of community support for a school that was about to shut down due to dwindling attendance.
Mostly stay-at-home wives of sugar plantation workers, some 60 mothers here have found something productive to do through livelihood programs under “Strive” (Strengthening Implementation of Basic Education in the Visayas).
An initiative of the Australian Agency for International Development and the Department of Education, Strive aims to improve access to education in schools with severe dropout rates through tailor-made programs that target entire communities.
Aiming for systems reform in struggling public schools, Strive provided some P800 million in financial grants and technical assistance to 308 schools and communities in Negros Occidental, Bohol, Northern Samar, Iloilo, Cebu and Tacloban.
For the Pontevedra school, reading improvement programs and providing transportation meant growing attendance by almost a full class, taking back the children from the sugar fields. From 141 students three years ago, the school year closed in March with 180 students, Quisio said.
Solutions under Strive go beyond the school grounds. In the case of Barangay Zamora, Strive involves the students’ mothers and gives them the means to make it through the non-earning months.
“The milling season here is from October to April. After that, we go hungry,” said barangay councilor Rolando Verona.
Now earning incomes during the off season, the mothers learned the salon package, from doing hair treatments to nail care, practicing their skills on each other.
As a happy consequence, the Zamora women have learned to groom themselves better, encouraging their husbands to come home earlier, noted Quisio.
“Dati hindi maganda asawa niyo. Ngayon mabango na (Before your wives weren’t pretty. Now they smell nice),” joked Verona, a bachelor, addressing the other men at the table during the interview.
Other women of the community were taught how to turn cassava into cake and how to make sausages or longganisa. The goods, promptly labelled and packaged for store shelves, are sold in neighboring towns and provinces.
“They saw for themselves that they had those skills and, because of that, they took more responsibility for their children,” Quisio said.
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