PBSP kicks off school clean-up week.

Over 200 employee-volunteers from the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) and its member-companies including Accenture, Inc., Dupont Far East, Inc., and SGS Philippines, Inc. will take part today in the annual kick-off event of Ready for School 2016 at the Esteban Abada Elementary School (EAES) in Quezon City.

In support of the Department of Education’s “Brigada Eskwela,” Ready for School started in 2007 as a campaign to help public school students have a better learning experience. PBSP, together with its member companies and partners, pooled funds to purchase books, school supplies, bags, food products, and classroom cleaning materials.

“Aside from Health, Environment, and Livelihood, Education is a main program area of PBSP. By supporting and initiating projects like Ready for School that help the education sector, we are making a big difference in ensuring that our children have better access to quality education and in effect, increase their chances of a brighter future. These are all in line with PBSP’s primary goal of reducing poverty in our country,” said PBSP Executive Director, Rafael Lopa.

 

Four years ago, PBSP scaled up its involvement by adding a volunteerism component to the back-to-school campaign. It was the first social development organization to systematically bring employee-volunteers from various companies to public schools nationwide and repaint school chairs and blackboards, cover books, construct reading nooks and clean up classrooms.

Lopa said, “In PBSP, we believe that volunteerism is innate in our employees. Initiatives like Ready for School provide them with avenues to go outside of their day-to-day work, and become more involved with the organization’s collective impact strategy. In the end, volunteers leave the schools with a greater sense of purpose and fulfillment.”

 

For the past eight years, PBSP has involved over 50 companies in helping more than 290 schools nationwide.

 

With over Php 800, 000 worth of volunteerism packages and in-kind donations, Ready for School 2016 will be held in various public schools nationwide. Other participating companies include Brother International Philippines, Inc., Cemex Asia Pte. Ltd., Inc., ePLDT, Inc., Philippine Daily Inquirer, M&H Food Corporation, Asalus Corporation (Intellicare), Mabuhay Vinyl Corporation, Pacific Paint (Boysen) Philippines, Inc., Tagum Agricultural Development Corporation, The Net Group, TSM Shipping (Phils.), Inc., UBS Securities Philippines, Inc., East-West Seed Company, Inc., Sagrex Corporation, Unifrutti Group Philippines, Nestle Philippines, Dow Chemical Pacific, Ltd., Citi Philippines, Telstra Foundation, and Mondelez, Philippines