Balsa Basa: Setting Sail to education

Zoomin English

Ryan Homan knew he had to do something when he found out that nearly four million children never attend school in the Philippines. His solution? Helping his community by teaching children on boats.

Transcript

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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