One student at a time, one week at a time [2013-06-14]

I’ve mentioned the UCSAP scholarship program in prior blog posts.  However it’s different enough from American scholarship programs to merit a bit more detail:  why it was started, what expenses it covers for the students who are its beneficiaries, and how it is administered.
 
One thing we immediately noticed upon our arrival in the Philippines were the working kids – kids carrying little baskets of vegetables or fruits to sell in the market, kids pedaling “sikads” (bikes with side cars to carry passengers) around town, kids manning the windows at tiny sari-sari stores where cans of sardines, sachets of shampoo, bags of junk food, and a million other single-use items fill every available inch from floor to ceiling.  Of course these were just the kids we saw in town – in the more remote areas, there were animals to feed, fields to plow, and water to carry.  Even more heart-breaking was watching the kids who regularly scouted the bags of trash that decorate trees and fences until the municipal dump truck makes its rounds.  One builds a whole new awareness of what “trash” is.  These kids do not have the option of going to school.  Even the meager amount of money that it takes (by American standards at least) is an impossibly high barrier to education for many families.
 
Thus it was that we partnered with our church in Compostela, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, to create a scholarship program to give promising high school students with limited means the resources to stay in school.  This year’s annual budget is intended to support ten new first year high school students, at about $140 per student: school uniforms ($12), school supplies ($12), PTA fees ($16), and daily transportation to school ($100).  If the annual PTA fees seem excessive, consider that they cover all extracurricular activities (athletics, the school newspaper, the student government, participation in contests), the salary for the guards who provide 24 hour/day security on campus, computer maintenance, funds for the library, supplies for the science lab, a clerk for the office, and so forth.  (Janitorial service at the school is supplied by the students during their daily “values time”.)
 
An interesting thing to note is what a large percent goes to daily transportation.  Very few families have any kind of wheels of their own, so kids depend upon various modes of public transportation to get to school: the aforementioned sikad, motorcycles with side cars, motorcycles with a long seat to fit 4-5 passengers, and small open-air vans called multi-cabs.  The daily round-trip expense might be 30-50 cents, but that cost is just unsupportable day after day for many families.  Thus $2 is budgeted each week for each scholar to cover this cost.
 
The other reality is that existence truly is hand-to-mouth for many families in the Philippines – literally, the money earned from one ride or sale goes directly to buy food for their next meal.  This raises the risk of money received for one purpose being “redeployed” to cover the immediate critical needs of the moment.  Thus the UCSAP committee hands out the $2 transportation fee to each scholar on a weekly basis.  This is a big logistical task for the committee but as one member told us with a huge smile on his face, “It feels like I am Santa Claus.”  The committee directly pays the PTA fees at the school for all scholars, helping to ensure that the money is used for the intended purpose.  In short, the UCSAP committee administers the program with care and thoroughness, with sensitivity to the challenges of daily life faced by the scholars and their families.
 
This year the committee included a line item in the scholarship budget for intervention.  If students are struggling academically in a subject area, this will allow them to get tutoring support.  Since scholars must maintain a certain grade point average to continue in the program, this additional support will help to ensure their success and continuation in school.
 
The reality is that not all of the students that started in the original program in 2009 made it all the way through: one moved and two weren’t able to maintain their grades.  New students were added along the way to replace them.  But what a thrill it was to see eight of the scholars graduate this last March!  We look forward to watching this new batch as they make their way through high school, thank to the generosity of Reneal IEO donors and the wonderful dedication and care of the UCSAP committee.