00:00There's a lot of kids that live in the river. I found out that sometimes they
00:15cannot go to school and at the same time we have children live in the mountain.
00:23The Balsa Balsa program, it is an outreach program for the kids who cannot attend classes or for the out-of-school
00:32who cannot go to school.
00:34I am the first resident here to study in college. So when I came back, I helped my community, the kids.
00:56When I was transferred here in San Jose Elementary School in Dunsol, in 2013, I found out that
01:11there were more non-readers here even in the intermediate, in the grade 4, grade 5, grade 6.
01:16So I had to do something to eradicate the non-readers.
01:20I cannot go to school when it's raining hard or during farming season because their parents asked
01:30them to help them. So I told the parents, please ask the children to come back to school.
01:36But sometimes they cannot make it because of the factors.
01:39My first reading program was the mobile library. So I made my own Balsa. The Balsa is the raft.
01:55It takes an hour to travel in the river.
01:57We bring books, some lessons with the volunteers. So I do remedial reading for the kids.
02:14I teach them house to house and then I gather them in the balsa and we read. I also bring food for them,
02:22for the kids.
02:35Now they can comprehend. They can easily communicate with their teachers. They can
02:39comprehend what they have read in the books.
02:46This reading program helps a lot in the performance of the kids because
02:50it increases the national achievement test from 51 to 71.
03:02Education is very important for the kids because it helps them to achieve their dreams through education.
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