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Education is the key to liberate the poor.

This is what Angelita Resurreccion learned from her development studies in Holland. Filled with a deep sense of nationalism by the 1986 People Power Revolution, she had committed herself to put that principle into action. "Poor children are victims of a vicious cycle," she says. "They cannot afford better quality education from private schools so they settle for public school education, which is generally not as good. Thus, most of them end up with inferior jobs that push them deeper into poverty. By providing them with excellent education, however, we can help them break out of this cycle."

While working as a church volunteer, she had seen the plight of many poor children. She wanted to teach them about the Bible but she would find it difficult even to just make them sit and listen. She realized that Sundays alone were not enough to be able to teach them. Daily interaction was required to accomplish that.

At that time, she had just gotten back from her preschool education studies in Switzerland. She had also attended a preschool seminar conducted by the Child Development Center of the University of the Philippines. During this seminar, she happened to meet the officers of Mission Ministries Philippines (MMP), an organization that helps churches establish preschools. When they learned about her desire to help educate urban poor children, they encouraged her and donated a table, chairs, and toys to get her started. Her church in turn provided her with cabinets. She then began teaching 17 urban poor children all by herself.

That was how Old Balara Christian Community School (OBCCS) began in a squatters area at Old Balara in Quezon City in 1987. Over the years, the school has pursued an innovative approach to enterprise education—an approach that has been the subject of increasing interest in various conferences in the Philippines and in other countries like Germany, Thailand, South Africa, and Brazil.

The OBCCS carries out a web-like curriculum that centers on four core values—love for God, love for country, love for scientific thinking, and love for work. Each school quarter, one of these core values takes the center of the web.

During the first quarter, the center is love for work, which is taught through activities and lessons on entrepreneurship and excellence. The students from preschool to high school are taught business concepts through a series of modules. These modules have been developed by Anji and her husband Rene "Rex" Resurreccion, who like herself is an experienced entrepreneurship trainer both locally and internationally.

Young people more readily learn these concepts through the use of multi-dimensional learning (MDL), an approach that goes beyond the traditional school setup that heavily relies on lectures. To impart the lessons, MDL uses images, songs, field trips, discussions, strategy games, simulation games, and actual business ventures.

Strategy games are incorporated in the daily lessons, while simulation games are played at least once a month. These games are designed by the Resurreccion couple to hone the students‚ strategic thinking skills and give them a better feel of how society works.

A good example of the games is "Entre-power," which tackles the empowerment of the poor. The members of each team take on the roles of squatters and are given the objective of rising above their poverty. They are then made to choose how to earn their living: whether to get employed, to start a business, or to just borrow money from a loan shark. They get to plan their family, budget their finances, and conceptualize their business. After that, for them to learn the importance of saving and planning well for their lives, they are made to deal with such dire situations as house demolitions and natural calamities.

As part of their lessons, the students are made to visit business establishments to give them a first-hand look at how particular companies produce goods and do their business. They are also brought to agricultural and animal farms in connection with their lessons on entrepreneurial urban farming.

After their lessons on product development, packaging, and marketing, the students have as their culminating activity the putting up of their own bazaars within the community. In fact, some of the students‚ inventions for their science fair—atsarang kangkong (pickled swamp cabbage) and carrot-flavored ice cream—are now being sold in the school canteen.

The students are also taught how to save and earn from their own enterprise, and for this purpose the OBCCS has formed a partnership with the local branch of Real Bank, a thrift bank. Each enrollee in the school now has a savings account, and the savings of some of them from their allowance and earnings alone now amount to over a thousand pesos.

To maintain the quality of teaching in this nontraditional setup, each class has to be limited to a maximum of 20 students. The current tuition fee is about P8,000 for the whole school year, an amount that already covers the use of the air-conditioned classrooms and computer room.

The school principal, Dorothy Sabarez, says about the school's future plans: "Our ultimate dream is to provide free education to the poorest of the poor. We intend to do this by establishing an enterprise that will enable the school to be self-sustaining. Likewise, we plan to put up a cooperative to provide for the needs of the teachers."

Sabarez truly knows whereof she speaks: „We want to be known as the school that cares for the poor. Personally, I have the heart for this because my siblings and I used to be street children ourselves. Anji and Rex reached out to us and mentored us when we were young. That was how my family rose from poverty. Now we want to give the same opportunity to other poor children.


CONTACT DETAILS:

Names: Angelita "Anji" Resurreccion, Director; Dorothy Sabarez, Principal
Description: Entrepreneurship school for urban poor children
Address: 701 Old Balara, Tandang Sora Ave., Quezon City
Contact Details: Telephones: 931-6155; 435-0506
Email: obchristiansch@yahoo.com
Year Started: 1987