BBFI Donates P32M Worth of Books in 2007

More than fifty organizations and institutions received over Php 32 Million worth of educational materials in 2007 through the Bato Balani Foundation’s Tulong Sa Paaralan, Tulay sa Kaunlaran program (TSP-TSK).

Since 1993, TSP-TSK has been providing deserving schools and communities nationwide with access to quality textbooks, educational materials and multimedia programs and content. Beneficiaries include public schools, NGO’s, local government units and corporate foundations with adopted schools, communities or reading programs. Partner organizations who are provided materials by the foundation usually distribute the materials to their own adopted schools and communities, providing a wider reach to deserving schools and students.

Teacher Programs Win Anvil for Third Straight Year

The Many Faces of the Teacher and A Tribute to Teachers were big winners at the recently concluded 43rd Anvil Awards of the Public Relations Society of the Philippines. Both programs, organized by Diwa Learning Systems in cooperation with the Bato Balani Foundation, were recognized with Anvil Awards for Excellence.

The BBFI staff are naturally humbled to have our programs honored in this way, and proudly share this achievement with our different partners that have helped make these programs a success.

Press release follows after the break.

Save the Date: The 4th North Batangas Summit

First Asia Institute of Technology and Humanities (FAITH) will be hosting the 4th North Batangas Summit on 25 January 2008.

The biennial summit, organized in partnership with the Bato Balani Foundation (BBFI), provides a venue for local government units, the academe and the business sector to discuss key issues in the region. The theme for this summit will be on Environment, Quality of Life and Economic Progress: The Case for a Thriving and Livable North Batangas.

The event will be held at FAITH’s Tanauan campus. For further information, contact Atty. Gay Francisco (FAITH) at (043) 778-0656/4136 local 104, Ms. Ching Jorge (BBFI) at 892-5462, or leave a comment for this post.

BBFI and Diwa Learning Systems receive 2007 Gold Quill Excellence Award

Bato Balani Foundation Inc (BBFI) and Diwa Learning Systems Inc (DLSI) once again received an Excellence Award for A Tribute to Teachers in the 2007 Philippine Gold Quill awards by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) held last 14 November 2007 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Makati City. The Gold Quill awards are given by the IABC to recognize outstanding public relations and corporate communications efforts in the country.

Started in 2004, A Tribute to Teachers is the largest and most anticipated annual gathering of teachers and school administrators in the country. Its last gathering on 01 September 2007 in Araneta Coliseum brought together approximately 16,000 educators from all over the country. 

Diwa and BBFI have won several public relations and corporate communications awards in the past. In 2006, IABC gave a Merit Award to The Many Faces of the Teacher and an Excellence Award to A Tribute to Teachers while the Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP) in the 42^nd Anvil Awards gave an Excellence Award to A Tribute to Teachers and a Merit Award to The Many Faces of the Teacher. In 2005, A Tribute to Teachers won the Anvil Award of Merit and, with The Many Faces of the Teacher, the Gold Quill Award of Merit.  DLSI and BBFI also won an Anvil Citation for Best Special Publication (1996) for World Youth Day ‘95: The Manila Phenomenon; an Anvil Award of Merit (1996) for the program How to be a Highly Effective Teacher; an  Anvil Award of Excellence (1997) for its newsletter Directline; an Anvil Award of Merit (1997) for the program Tulong sa Paaralan, Tulay sa Kaunlaran; an Anvil Award of Excellence (1998) for trade and professional publication for the magazine Quality Teacher; and an Anvil Award of Merit (2003) for Sulong sa Edukasyon. 

Diwa and BBFI are partners in developing teacher training and research on Philippine education issues.

Training for QC Librarians

The Bato Balani Foundation Inc. in partnership with Toddlers Unlimited and the Quezon City Government organized a storytelling training program for the City’s librarians. Sixty librarians will be trained in the basics of storytelling including the use of various methods in effective storytelling for kids. The libraries of Quezon City are regularly visited by the children in communities and schools in the area. By engaging in a storytelling program the children are encouraged to visit the libraries more often, thereby inculcating a love for books and reading. The Bato Balani Foundation regularly donates books and educational magazines to the Quezon City libraries.

The effort was spearheaded by the Bato Balani Foundation and the Quezon City Government through Rose Ann Belmonte and Josefina Belmonte Alimurung. Gabby Roa-Limjoco, an expert in Early Childhood Education from Toddlers Unlimited, conducted the training.

The first batch of the program was held on 6 November 2007, with a second batch to be conducted on 23 November 2007. The participants of the first batch also participated in a workshop wherein they presented their own versions of the various methods of storytelling.

For more information on the program you may email bbfi@diwamail.com.

Partnership: Pathways to Higher Education

In pursuit of continually upgrading the quality of education for Filipino students, Pathways to Higher Education (Pathways) and Bato Balani Foundation Inc. (BBFI) entered into a partnership to establish a Pathways program at the First Asia Institute of Technology and Humanities (FAITH).

Based at the Ateneo de Manila University, Pathways undertakes activities geared toward assisting underprivileged students to attain a more productive future through education. In this light, both BBFI and Pathways are committed to develop a pilot program to provide support services to academically-gifted but financially-disadvantaged students outside of Manila. This will involve teacher and staff training, development of training and seminar manuals, as well as the implementation and coordination of other Pathways programs.

This first Pathways program outside of Manila will be established at FAITH. Located in Tanauan City, Batangas, the Pathways program at FAITH also aims to serve nearby cities and municipalities.

BBFI @ CSR Expo 2007!

The Bato Balani Foundation will be an exhibitor in the 2007 Corporate Social Responsibility Expo (CSR Expo) this July 16-18, 2007 at the Sofitel (formerly Westin) Philippine Plaza .

The annual CSR Expo, an undertaking of the over 80-member strong League of Corporate Foundations (LCF), began as a showcase of members’ efforts in corporate philanthropy and has grown into a venue for engendering greater awareness of and interest in CSR. Last year’s Expo — which saw the unveiling of the LCF’s Roadmap for Education — echoed the LCF’s rallying cry of “Let’s Take CSR to Heart.” The 2007 Expo takes a further step in this direction with the theme “Putting CSR to the Test: Cultivating Shared Values for Business and Society.”

Aside from participating members’ exhibits, the 2007 CSR Expo will also feature plenary sessions with the leading voices of Philippine corporate social responsibility as well as the launch of the Corporate Social Responsibility Institute and its CSR101 campaign, the LCF’s new flagship program.

With preparations for the event already underway, the BBFI staff have been working doubly hard to help make this year’s Expo a success.

[The 2007 CSR Expo (League of Corporate Foundations)]

Welcome!

The rest of the site is now up and running, which means I get to inaugurate the all-new Bato Balani Foundation (BBFI) blog!

For those unfamiliar with who we are and what we do, here’s the short version: we’re a non-profit corporate foundation based in the Philippines that designs and implements education-related programs. We’ve been around since 1991 and keep a generally lean staff, though you wouldn’t know it looking at our portfolio of projects throughout the years. And in an effort to share more about the interesting things we’re up to, we decided to set up this blog.

(That’s it in broad strokes. The more formal and detailed version can be found elsewhere on the site.)

The past few years in particular have been quite exciting for BBFI, both because of the growing interest in Philippine education-related issues as well as current trends in corporate social responsibility. We have every confidence that the coming years will be even more so, and hope that this blog can offer a front row seat to what we do in the hope that it inspires others to help join our cause to work towards education development in the Philippines.

In the short term, this blog will obviously serve as a medium through which we will disseminate information about our programs and campaigns, not to mention the other philanthropic initiatives of our corporate benefactors and partner organizations. Over time, however, we hope this blog grows to become a portal through which people can find everything they need to know about education-related issues in the Philippines, and to that end we’ll be writing about (or featuring material related to) such things from time to time.

There are interesting times ahead for BBFI and all those specially interested in improving Philippine education. We hope you join us for the ride.