Learning Without Borders Inc.

Our organization seek to :

• Operate and provide secular or non-religious, nonpartisan, non-political volunteer activity programs for others to be involve with, creating social activities geared to assist the marginalized communities through basic literacy and art programs and projects.
• Provide training and instruction on daily living skills, personal growth and development skills which shall include lessons in cooking, cleaning, and preserving the cleanliness of the learning area.
• Provide training on personal hygiene, personality development and self-enhancement skills which shall include sessions on proper budgeting for personal necessities, good manners, etiquette, and proper behavior.
• Provide livelihood and sustainable project training programs to inspire productivity and the drive to up skill. Programs may include basic food preparations, baking, soap production, candle production, and farming for livelihood.
• Undertake play, recreation, and cultural activities to build camaraderie, sense of community, and to be used as therapeutic strategy which shall include celebrations, film viewing, and other group activities.
• Training skills to develop entrepreneurship through community programs are provided to members of the community who require additional income for their basic needs.
•  Provide learning and instruction on modern concepts and how to preserve and conserve Filipino customs and traditions while adapting to modernity.
• Encourage freedom of religion and provide non-sectarian educational tools to ensure inclusivity and inspire respect for all beliefs.

As the Project Manager for Human Development, it is my obligation to ensure that the project/program be implemented as per agreement of all stakeholders involved (sponsors, coordinators and beneficiaries).

The role starts from consultation and does not end at implementation. All projects/programs are geared towards sustainable endeavors and is expected to be able to manage challenges that may arise as the project starts its inception.

The Human Development project started in 2016 as part of inter-school based activity. It has now regularly concentrated its effort to maintain and retain the basic literacy program that was initially piloted by Senior High student as their immersion project.

The program has now evolved and have been maintained as once a week project for volunteers and project team to ensure continuity serving the community.

LWOB Digital Literacy Program will focus on digital education utilization for English comprehension to help the community in their literacy index.

 The Haduan Aeta Community is a landlocked indigenous community located in the east of Tarlac and west in the province of Pampanga. The nearest point of entry to the community is through Clark Special Economic Zone Gate 14 which is about a 14km drive from Angeles City Hall. However, the actual community is located much farther and would require about 45 minutes of trekking the mountain.

The Community currently still does not have a direct supply line to electricity and water. Electricity is provided through the use of a generator running on gas which is a non-renewable type of energy. On the other hand, drinking water is taken from the nearest available source which would still require another trek. This is the day-to-day reality experienced by the community.

It is already a fact that technological and digital advancement is not as robust especially for rural and secluded communities. The lack of access to electricity and even digital signals have made it far more difficult for indigenous communities to have the opportunity to bridge the digital gap. This reality was further exacerbated by the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Currently, digital literacy for the community is limited to mobile phone usage through SMS.

Digital literacy can help bridge the gap as well with what the Studies have shown.  It stated that mathematical and scientific proficiency relies heavily on English reading comprehension. This is because these subjects require students to be able to understand and interpret written text. In order to succeed in these subjects, students need to be able to read fluently and accurately, and they need to be able to understand the meaning of the text they are reading.

 The Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics 2019 (SEA-PLM) showed that the Philippines only met 10 percent of the minimum reading standard and 17 percent met the minimum mathematical standard from students ending their primary education. These results are concerning, as they suggest that a large number of Filipino children are not receiving the education they need to succeed in school and in life.

A recent UNICEF report found that nearly six out of every 10 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries are suffering from learning poverty. This means that they are not able to acquire the basic skills they need to function in society. Translated to the Philippine context, this means that less than 15% of Filipino children are found to be capable of reading a simple text at age 10. This is a serious problem, as it means that a large number of Filipino children are at risk of being left behind.

 The Community was awarded a Digital Literacy Program grant last year, 2022 from PEACE CORPS ALUMNI FOUNDATION FOR PHILIPPINE DEVELOPMENT (PCAFPD). This grant provided the community with tablets and refurbished laptops, which helped to bridge the technological gap between the community and the rest of the world. Learning Without Borders Inc., wishes to continue to provide higher education to the community using these tools to their maximum value.

Program Objective and Goals

 With the primary goals of helping students become more engaged citizens by developing the skills and knowledge that they need to succeed in life, we hope to address and help the participants the following:

 For literacy participants:

 Improve the reading comprehension skills of students in the Early Childhood Development and Adult Learning to Read programs.

• Develop the ability of the participants to meet the 5 National Reading Panel Criteria namely phonological awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
• Introduce and encourage learning the 44 sounds (Phonemes) of English.

 For Continuing Digital Education:

 Equip the participants the understanding of digital education.

• Provide students with opportunities to use digital literacy tools to learn and create.
• Bridge the technological gap between the Haduan Aeta Community and the rest of society.

 Program Activities

 The program will use a variety of activities to achieve its goals, including:

 Individual and group instruction

• Hands-on activities
• Games and simulations
• Online resources
• Exposure trips

 The primary learning tool and medium will be the laptop computers and tablets that were refurbished using the funds from the grant we received last year. The program will focus on all existing participants to enhance and complement the digital literacy program. Classes will be held once a week.

We closely work with Indigenous People group called Aeta Mag-ansti.

We use activities and indicators to show the success of each plan that is implemented as per our outlook and projected output.

When the project started in 2016 as an outdoor and immersion activity by City Senior High student under my Disaster Risk Resilience Class, the children cannot verbally, visually or otherwise write the alphabet. No materials are available at that time. Volunteers have to use what is available. We do not have a space or proper classroom to work on. We use the ground as our table. When we visited the literacy ratio is almost to zero from ages 2 to 6 years old, (Alphabet Recognition), some older children cannot read and write their name.

But with the passion and realization that through proper introduction and assistance, the initial project as an immersion classes became a full time endeavors of volunteers to help the children and the community, it has become a once a week literacy project offering early literacy education (2 to 5) and continuing education covering basic grammar and English proficiency (6 to 15). Classes split according to comprehension and skills.

From non-existence of alphabet recognition, the starter participants are now able to recognize and write the alphabets properly through the help of digital applications as it is interactive and interesting for them.

The unavailability of tools to use and the numbers of users are not equal hampering the time needed by each participant to perform their tasks. Thus creating unreliable success indicator as other can already be aware of the activity set. It is difficult to create another activity for the same set of participants.

Integrating both English Literacy to Digital application takes effort and time consuming. In each activity that we create, we manually take each picture and have the children do them using MS Word functions. This type of practical application does help the participant understanding the functions and English Literacy. This however is very time consuming and no solution can be found or offered for free.

If we can somehow find a or create a digital solution that integrate what we aim to provide to the participant, i.e. faster integration of English literacy using MS Word functions as the sample below shows.

1. How effective are the interactive materials or application for learners with disability such as children with cognitive malnutrition?

2. Does it correlate to have a 1:1 ratio of tools to indicate success? how do we measure such success? What are the best success indicators to use in this instance, if we are thinking that comprehension both in literacy and digital knowledge will be based on hands on activities?

3. What are the best materials that can be used to strengthen and hasten comprehensibility of the users? we have not found interactive solution that can help non-native  speakers.

We created a time table for our plan. This is a work in progress as we have to adjust given some challenges and difficulties. This is what we hope to concentrate on and see how we will be able to implement such plan. We adjust our time table to maximized the learning output of each participant.

Month

Set of Activities

January

Will be dedicated to familiarization of peripherals and its function

February

Focused on integrating MS word functions with 44 sounds (Phonemes) of English i.e. short and long vowel sound

March

Focused on integrating MS word functions with 44 sounds (Phonemes) of English i.e. consonant and vowel digraphs

April

Focused on MS Powerpoint functions with 44 sounds (Phonemes) of English i.e. consonant and vowel digraphs

May

Focused on MS Powerpoint functions with 44 sounds (Phonemes) of English i.e. consonant and vowel digraphs

June

Practical Application with verbal and digital practice sheets

July

Practical Application with verbal and digital practice sheets

August

Practical Application with verbal and digital practice sheets

September

Practical Application with verbal and digital practice sheets

October

Practical Application with verbal and digital practice sheets

November

Practical Application with verbal and digital practice sheets

December

Practical Application with verbal and digital practice sheets

Such insights gained from the conclusion of the LEAP Project sprint will help us continue and improved the system that we have already in place or if needed revamp to create a better one to deliver the correct system hence creating a longer and sustainable impact to the community. 

What we have in place right now is rudimentary at best. We are a group of volunteers having one goal in mind and that is just to help and assist the community to be literate.

We will continue our routine since we started. Our day starts from feeding the participants, we learned from experience that the children perform better when they have eaten.

We divide the participants according to their level of comprehension. In the Philippines, most classes are bracketed based on age. Doing this create uneven learning curve.

In our practice, dividing children according to their comprehension gave a better result and learning activity is much appreciated by the participants.

Hence, any insights and learnings from LEAP Project sprint shall assist our team to better perform and offer the best to the participants, hopefully creating a cycle that can continue what we started, this time by the participants from the community itself.

Specifically, these are the following objectives of the LWOB Digital Literacy Program that we wished to achieved in the long run and shall be based on as a sustainable and continuing program for the community, transfer of knowledge is a priority.

1. Increase familiarity in operating mobile devices in maximizing their use for educational purposes within the program timeframe.
2. Increase the literacy index of the community through the use of the digital application.
3. Participants hopefully gained such skill set in reading comprehension thus enabling them to understand mathematical problems, science appreciation and correctly solving such.
4. Participants will be able to help and transfer the knowledge to the next batch of participants, from introduction of peripherals to the functions of each MS Office application.
5. Shall provide the basis for continuing education in the community as the participants should not be stagnant nor ignored as being considered not adept at higher learning when they are of age to be educated in the nearest higher learning university.
6. Develop basic digital skill sets for adapting in higher education and education opportunities in the computer field.
7. Develop expertise in using work-relevant digital applications (MS Office, Google Documents, etc…) to build competencies that can be used for alternative employment opportunities.