Control Group Testing

Meaningful Volunteer wants to do great job of educating children.  We also want to know that we are doing a great job.

To accomplish this we are doing control group testing.  This means that we are going to test as many children as we can to find out their average English competency.  The children who attend the RYE School will do the same test.  Six months or so later, a similar test will be given.  If the children in the RYE School are doing significantly better than those students who are not attending, then we are doing something right!

We have started our testing and have targeted the villages of Sogud, Cabulotan, Long Beach  and Kawayan.  The test concentrates on speaking, listening and read.  You can view the test here.  The tests take about 30 minutes to perform and we have done about 140 tests to date.

Initial results are showing that students who have a long walk to school have significantly lower average level than those with a short walk. 

RYE School Summer Program

The schools in the Philippines are just about to have their graduation ceremony and are about to start the summer holidays.

Meaningful Volunteer is taking advantage of this opportunity to start its Summer School Program.  This will serve two purposes.  Firstly, it will give some students who are struggling in their studies that extra boost.   And secondly, it will allow us to run some pilot classes to determine what the best way of running the classes is.

The Summer School program will be run at Sugod Elementary School on Tablas Island.  Malcolm Trevena gave an introductory talk about the Summer School Program to students and staff.  They were especially excited about the chance to use the laptops purchased by Meaningful Volunteer.

Each student was issued with a small comic book that explained the concepts and ideas behind the RYE School.  The comic book was developed by Christopher Leinonen.  Be sure to visit his website.

New Volunteers Welcomed

Two new volunteers were welcomed into Meaningful Volunteer programs. 

Ingrid Potgieter - from New Zealand via way of South Africa - will be volunteering with Project Lifecycle for at least three months.  Ingrid has a strong passion for female human rights and wrote her masters thesis on the overlap between female reproductive rights and the Millennium Development Goals.

Steve Harrison - from the U.S. via way of Peru - will be volunteering with the RYE School.  Steve will be volunteering for at least two months as part of the RYE School Summer program and bought many school supplies with him to help get the school started.

Meaningful Volunteer is very excited to have two such committed individuals as part of our team

Laptops Purchased

The Meaningful Volunteer Trust - based out of Auckland New Zealand, recently purchased four laptop computers for use in the RYE School.

These laptops (see here for specs) will be used to teach the children in the Romblon Province of the Philippines.  They will initially be taught how to type and use a mouse.  These two skills alone will open up a world of possibilities to them. 

The latops will also be used to teach Word Processing, data entry and so on once the children have mastered the basic skills. 

Meaningful Volunteer will also look to partner with several medium size call centers and ISPs (Internet Service Providers).  We will approach for them donations, and in return we can provide them with employees who are fluent speakers of English and are computer literate.  This provides benefits to all parties, but especially to local students who have a realistic chance of getting a job in Manila once their education is finished.

The laptops are all WiFi enabled and Meaningful Volunteer is investigating ways to get Internet to the island, which will open up even more doors for the residents.

The laptops each cost 11,900 Philippine pesos (~ $US 245).

If you like this initiative, and would like to donate a laptop and help us to empower even more people, then click here.

Partnership formed with IRH

Meaningful Volunteer is deligthed to anounce its new partnership with IRH (Institute for reproductive Health, Philippines).   

The IRH has been involved with family planning for many years in the Philippines and Meaningful Volunteer will serve as its partner in the Romblon area.   The IRH will visit Romblon in the near future to commence the training phase of Project Lifecycle.  Meaningful Volunteer will provide logistical and project management supoprt.

Meaningful Volunteer also recently purchased 100 cycle bead necklaces and various support materials.  If you are interested in helping with this project, why not purchase some cycle bead necklaces for us?

RYE School Update

Contributions

One of basic ideas of the RYE School was to get kids to contribute to their education by paying in the form of recycled garbage.  The RYE School will be built on the island of Tablas, and there is just not enough recyclable garbage to collect!  
We want the kids to invest in their education.   Collecting garbage was but one option.  Here are the other options we are looking at.

Planting Mangroves
There is plenty of work to be done on Project Mangrove in terms of manual labor.  If the kids work for a weekend and help us to plant some mangroves, then that is good enough for a terms worth  of fees.

Community cleanup
A lot of the town centers in the area are very messy due to neglect from the local community.  The kids will help us do a community cleanup and that will suffice for one terms worth of fees.

Potential Site for the RYE School

An area of land in the barangay (village) of Sugod had been identified as a potential site for the RYE School.  The site is about 200 m2 and will cost about 60,000 pesos (~ $US 1,300).   The site was chosen for two reasons.

Sun
Tablas is a mountainous area and not all parts of it receive a lot of sun.  Sogud receives approximately 11 hour of direct sunlight every day.

Internet
The Philippines has a product called SMART Bro, which is a small USB device that plugs into your computer.  SMART Bro will provide an Internet Service wherever there is cell phone access.

Sogud has a direct line of site with a nearby cell phone tower, so the Internet access should be excellent.
 

Choice of Computers

The RYE School will be using some ultra-lightweight laptops.  The laptops weigh about 1kg and consume about 75W of electricity, which should work very well with the solar power.  These are the computers we will be using.

Security is an issue on the island – desperate people do desperate things.  The lightweight nature of the laptops will allow them to be easily transported to a secure location when they are not in use.

Temporary Location

We want to start teaching children before the school is built.  We will be setting up a bamboo structure with an awning acting as a cover - basically a big tent.  We will use this tent as a temporary location until the school is built.

Project Mangrove Update

There is a mangrove program on the island of Tablas, but it is in disarray and not at all well managed.
Meaningful Volunteer is hoping to change that. 

There is a famous Filipina mangrove expert called Dr. Primervera who lives quite close to Romblon.  Meaningful Volunteer hopes to bring her to the island and seek her expert advice.

If you walk along the beach, you will find many structures destroyed by Typhoon Frank which do NOT have mangroves in front of them.  There are other flimsy structures that did survive Typhoon Frank and DID have mangroves in front of them. 

This further gives weight to how useful mangroves are at providing a natural barrier to tsunamis and other natural disasters.

Project Mangrove is also looking at forming close ties with the kids at the RYE School.  If the children help out for a weekend planting mangroves, then that is good enough for one terms worth of fees.
 

Project Lifecycle Update

Two of the key stakeholders on Tablas Island (where Project Lifecycle will be based) are the Catholic Church and the Local Health Care Centers.  Malcolm Trevena – of Meaningful Volunteer – met with both groups to assess the Family Planning norms on the island.

The Catholic Church

Father Nelson – the local priest on Romblon – restated the church’s position on contraception.  Condoms, contraceptive pills, contraceptive injections and any other type of artificial methods are strictly forbidden.

The church is very much for family planning and trying to reduce the average family size.  Any couple that wished to get married in the church must attend a one hour family planning seminar.  In the seminar, the couples are taught the Rhythm Method of family planning.   While this is better than no method at all, research shows that it is not nearly as effective as the SDM method.  (SDM is the Standard Days Method – the method used by the Lifecycle necklaces.)

Father Nelson had not heard of the SDM method, but was very open to the idea.  He suggested that Meaningful Volunteer meets together with the local diocese to discuss the method with the local bishop and fathers.

Local Health Care Centers

There are several health care centers on the island.  Each health care center is typically run by four or so health care workers.

The health care centers stock the usual contraceptives.  They cannot offer the contraceptives, but can accept donations if they are requested by the client.  This is very frustrating for the local health care workers.

They often had local couples approaching them and saying things like: “We did what they church said, and we still got pregnant!”  This is also frustrating for the health care workers as they feel they could do a much better job of counseling than they church does. They are – after all – trained health care workers.

At a recent conference, they were exposed to the Lifecycle necklaces and the SDM method and actually had one (!) necklace in stock.  Meaningful Volunteer plans to help the Health Care Centers as much as possible and supply them with as many Lifecycle necklaces as we can.

The health care centers also work closely with the local midwives.  Each midwife is assigned three barangays (villages) and takes care of all the prenatal and postnatal care.

Meaningful Volunteer will work closely with all the key stakeholders on the island to ensure the best possible standards of family planning on the island.

Project Updates

Meaningful Volunteer is almost set to go on the Romblon Islands in the Philippines.  Malcolm Trevena recently did some research on some of the projects and this is what he found out.

RYE School Update

The RYE School has found a temporary location, changed its focus on how the children will contribute, decided on some computers and found a site to build the school. 

Project Lifecycle Update

Meaningful Volunteer has met up with Father Nelson - one of the local priests on the island - and the local health care workers. 

Project Mangrove Update

The mangroves in Romblon are in a sorry state.   Meaningful Volunteer will be bringing in a world class Filipina mangrove expert to help with the project. 

School Building Update

Meaningful Volunteer will be working closely with CERV Philippines on the School Building and Maintenance program. 

Forming Partnerships with CERV

Meaningful Volunteer and CERV Philippines are delighted to announce a formal partnership between the two organizations.  Raymund Villanueva signed on behalf of CERV and Malcolm Trevena signed on behalf of Meaningful Volunteer.

CERV Philippines has been placing volunteers in the Philippines since 2005 and has taken an active role in a wide range of educational, environmental and medicinal projects.

Meaningful Volunteer - formed in 2008 - will bring volunteers from all over the world to assist developing communities in the Philippines.

Meaningful Volunteer and CERV Philippines will work together on a number of projects including:

The RYE School

The RYE School will be a solar powered school initially offering English and Computer Science courses.  Children attending the school will participate in community cleanups to pay for their school fees.

Project Lifecycle

Project Lifecycle makes use of simple necklaces as a form of family planning.  The project attempts to reduce the average family size on the islands of Romblon.

Project Mangrove

Project Mangrove will replant mangrove trees around Tablas Island in the Romblon province.  Mangroves are a vital part of the eco-system, provides a place for fish to lay their eggs and forms a natural barrier against tsunamis and other environmental hazards.

School Building

Much of the infrastructure on Romblon was destroyed when Typhoon Frank hit.  The School Building project helps the community to rebuild.