Water Must Be Accessible to All School!

By: Jan Irvin D. Kis-ing

Teacher I

Colalo Elementary School

Mankayan, Benguet – Din danum et Biyag, siya di katagoan ya managtago endatako. (Water is Life, for it nurtures us by making us healthy and supports our livelihood) This dictum is always found on Cordilleran chants and stories. It outlines how the Cordilleran survived for centuries in these majestic mountains.

 Colalo Elementary School resonate this Cordilleran Aphorism by establishing its water management program that implemented Php 133,838.00 for ensuring a continuous supply of water that was successfully completed last January 12, 2016. The amount is used in the purchase of six (6) kilometers of hosepipe and labor.

 The fund is a part of the gain of the Search for Little Mr. and Miss Colalo 2015. 

As most Cordilleran community, Brgy Colalo gets its household and agricultural water supply in creeks and rivers.  As pristine as it get  or as polluted as it is, this water sources keeps the agricultural industry growing and evolving, but it also supplies the growing household and other industries resulting to depletion of water supply. On situations like this, schools are left behind with less than a drop of water.

A school with scarce water supply is faced with many challenges like health, hygiene and sanitation issues, non-implementation of Dep.Ed programs like the promotion of oral health and hand washing, gulayan sa paaralan, school re-greening activities, among others. Water shortage in the school also hampers academic undertakings such as cooking, gardening, and experimenting.

At the moment, the school is producing fresh and organic vegetables and establishes a fruit tree nursery that will be used for tree planting activities during rainy season. Learners can now enjoy their EPP activities like cooking and food processing and science experiments. Further, the clean comfort rooms and the vivid implementation of the hand-washing and tooth brushing activities draws attention from health workers. The school water supply supplements the depleted Brgy water source by sharing its overflow to the community.  All of this is due to the steady supply of water in the school without thinking of the water bill. 

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Jan Irvin has been teaching at Colalo Elementary School and has worked a lot in developing the school's library through his initiative they are able to build a library from a scratch. The Project Mountain Alphabet has helped them in some ways in support to a teachers initiative to make his school better and to have a better learning experience of his student..

Here's the story.

It all Started with a Giraffe.

Building a Library From the Kindness of Strangers