Donates Classroom in Siocon Barangay
Officials and teachers of a small public school in the remote town of Siocon, Zamboanga del Norte finally got what they had always longed for: a new classroom to accommodate the growing population of schoolchildren in the community.Sta. Maria Elementary School has become the latest beneficiary of the social development initiatives of TVI Resource Development Philippines, Inc. (TVIRD) when the Company recently donated a 40-seater capacity classroom building to school officials in simple turnover ceremonies witnessed by leaders of Barangay Sta. Maria and representatives of the Department of Education (DepEd).
Santa Maria is a predominantly Muslim community, one of the coastal barangays in the western portion of Siocon The donation forms part of the TVIRD’s expanding outreach program in which the Company is extending its care and sustainable benefits initiatives not only to the immediate Canatuan vicinity, but to outlying barangays as well.
“Sa project diri na nahatag gikan sa TVI(RD), nagsalamat kami ug dako, labi na sa mga katawhan sa Sta. Maria…gikalipay gayud namo gumikan kay nahatagan kami gikan sa kompanya (We are grateful to TVIRD for this project. The people of Sta. Maria… are really happy because the Company gave us this project),” said Sta. Maria Barangay Chairman Muarip Salvador in Visayan, the local dialect. He added that he is convinced that the Company is serious about helping develop its impact communities.
Araceli Tomboc, DepEd Siocon District Supervisor; and Alfred Descallar, Head Teacher of Sta. Maria Elementary School, also thanked TVIRD for its support for the uplift of education. They said that residents of nearby barangays will also benefit from the classroom donation because many of their children are enrolled in the school.
For his part, Oscar Covarrubias of the TVIRD Community Relations and Development Office (CReDO) stressed that the development of the host municipality and province of the Canatuan Copper-Gold Project are an integral part of the Company’s sustainable development program.
Education, he added, is one of the centerpieces of this program.
TVIRD has built a total of six classrooms in its impact communities. It also hired additional elementary school teachers for its host community, as well as put up a day care center for children of Subanon indigenous people, the ancestral domain titleholders in Canatuan. It has likewise conducted literacy programs for adult Indigenous People. Just recently, the Company conducted an Organizational Development Workshop for officials of the Siocon Subanon Association, Inc. to help build their capacity for self-determination. (Rene Patangan)
