“If the poor boy cannot come to education, education must go to him.” – Swami Vivekananda
Around 7:00 AM on the 2nd of March 2017, I and my group mates in our Lassallian Business Leadership class met in McDonalds in Mall of Asia in Pasay because we have a schedule first meeting with Teacher Fe Matullano-Lustañas at 9:00 PM. Teacher Fe is the topic of my 5th blog entry, in the CSR category of this blog site, and the subject of our service learning project. I failed to mention in my first blog though that Teacher Fe is a recipient of several awards including Bayaning Guro Award in 2012.
We met her a few minutes before 9 AM at the barangay hall of San Dionisio in Parañaque City. Upon seeing us, she demonstrated a lot of courtesy to us and immediately even asked everyone for a photo opportunity with her. She eagerly showed us the large multi-purpose hall and the offices of the local government of the barangay where she holds one of her advocacies on educating the children.
After the initial tour of the place, she led us to the second floor of the barangay hall and brought us to be introduced to the “mother-child” learning class. The kids there were part of groups of children that benefit from the noble advocacy of Teacher Fe.
At the other end of the room was a small room where we had our formal meeting with her which lasted until around 12:15 PM. She started with her story. About her background, her family, her government career and how she started doing her “education under the bridge” advocacy. She told us of her awards and the numerous TV and radio “guestings” and interviews she went through and the positive impact resulting from those media exposures. She mentioned several donors that help her get through the financial challenges that her advocacy entails. Teacher had so many stories. She had so much to tell.
So when our turn finally came, we started by telling her what we intend to do. Understandably, based on my observation of the whole session, she was under the impression that we were there to volunteer and conduct some teaching sessions and probably do feeding activities. Until we made the detailed explanations of what we plan to do, that Teacher Fe realized that our primary focus was her and her advocacy and not her wards.
Our objective is clear. We want to help in ensuring the sustainability of her project. Doing volunteer work on specific schedule, providing one-time financial assistance, donating materials or doing feeding activities are all relatively easy to undertake but very “short-term”. And we do not want that.
We want our Lassallian Leadership project to have long-term impact to Teacher Fe’s advocacy so that she could be of service to more children not only in her local community but to other areas as well.
To do this, our approach is three-pronged:
Organization – We want to officially form her organization. From what we gathered from her, her advocacy is still on a personal level with the support of her husband and friends and a number of donors. There is no formal organization and formal structure to speak of, and therefore no formal body to manage the project and ensure that it carries on for the long haul. There is no written Articles of Incorporation that will characterize the existence and intent and purposes of the organization. There is no written by-laws to identify officers and establish their respective roles or division of labor, or set the policies and procedure of the organization that will guide them as they carry-out their organizational goals. These set of policies and procedure will serve as their compass to ensure that they don’t deviate from their original organizational trajectory.
Legal personality – We want legal personality to be bestowed upon her organization through proper government registration. In her case, it’s the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that will put them on SEC’s roll of non-profit organizations. Without legal recognition, her organization will always be subjected to legitimacy issue. It would not be easy for donors to make donations to her, or they would not give at all. Others would simply use other channel with legal existence to help her. And when they do, it’s in the form of goods already, which might not be what they actually need.
In 2004, however, the SEC has tightened the rules on the registration of all non-profit organizations as a response to the unabated increase in the number of unscrupulous organizations preying on hapless individuals. They now require at least One (1) million in initial seed fund of the organization. Obviously, Teacher Fe would not be able to raise this amount. So, instead of pushing for SEC registration, we would probably push for some recognition of the local governments, the barangay and the city government can probably lend legitimacy and some semblance of legal personality to Teacher Fe’s organization. SEC registration can come later when the capital requirement is reached already.
Website and Crowfunding – We want to spread the advocacy through the internet. Using a website and crowfunding, the project can, in fact, have a global reach. And people will have the tool to know and be convinced about the advocacy and be able to held and donate in a click of a button. The goal is to reach as many people as possible and expand the possible source of funding support for the organization. This way, Teacher Fe need not rely on the third party conduits (like i-volunteer) to get the resources she need.
Teacher Fe, I know, has the passion. She has the heart and that fire, that burning desire, to make a change in the world, one child at a time. What she doesn’t have is the tool to move to a higher level and become bigger and enable her to reach more children.
I strongly believe that these three goals, when done, will be the start of a bigger Teacher Fe. Much, much bigger than she is today.
I can only dream that someday it will be written in the biography of Teacher Fe and in the history of her organization, that six MBA students of Dela Salle University paved the way for her to make an indelible imprint to the society and brought enormous impact to the country.
As Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
Life and Shade 