Foster a Child’s Education
Holcim Philippines, Inc.
“Through FACE, Holcim fulfills its commitment to sustainable development by uplifting the lives of these children in the hopes of building sustainable foundations for their future.”
INTRODUCTION
Foster a Child’s Education or FACE is Holcim Philippines’ CSR program for education. FACE provides direct and supplemental educational assistance to poor but deserving primary and secondary students in Holcim’s areas of operations by giving them access to quality basic education. Through FACE, Holcim fulfills its commitment to sustainable development by uplifting the lives of these children in the hopes of building sustainable foundations for their future.
FRAMEWORK AND STRATEGY
As solution to the need to support the basic problem of getting children to attend school, Holcim Philippines developed the direct educational assistance component of FACE, communicating to employees the need for the program and how they can help, to harness volunteerism to sponsor children’s meals and transportation allowances. As of today, more than 160 Holcim employees, clients, and partners pool resources to provide for the children’s allowances and other school fees. In essence, FACE aims to solve the problem of lacking access to basic education by making sure students go to school with decent clothes and supplies, proper nutritional food, and without having to walk for kilometers just to attend classes.Holcim Philippines also saw the opportunity for quality education by giving out supplemental assistance to its currently assisted 600 scholars in its 30 partner schools. Library construction, book donations, teachers’ training and workshops for sports, literacy, values formation, and personality development are annually facilitated in partnership with different NGOs and local government units to augment the schools’ capacity to improve the quality of education in the areas.
ACHIEVEMENT AND IMPACT
Objective 1: Reduce absenteeism and increase cohort survival ratio (retention rate) in FACE-assisted schools – From its direct financial assistance, the program was able to significantly reduce the drop-out rate and increased cohort survival rate in the respective schools from the retention rate of 50% (out of 10 Grade 1 students, only 5 students survive high school) to 100% for almost all schools (out of 10 Grade 1 students, 10 students survive until high school).Objective 2: Improve overall nutritional status of students in FACE-assisted schools – At the end of every year, coordinators report that the feeding project of FACE has significantly improved and still continues to improve its scholars’ nutritional status from wasted and severely wasted to normal weight. 100% of its scholars have now achieved normal weight from underweight, wasted, and severely wasted since the beginning of the program.
Objective 3: Facilitate supplemental projects and activities to help improve overall performance of students and the schools around Holcim’s operating areas –The grade quota set for the scholars allow the teachers and parents alike to evaluate the students’ performance every grading period. With less than 1/8 of the scholars falling out of the grade quota each year, FACE ensures good academic standing for most of its scholars. Scholars who fell out of the grade quota are placed under probation for almost a year to improve their grades by engaging the teachers’ and parents’ help to identify key areas for improvement and provide proper tutorial, mentoring, and coaching for them.
FUTURE DIRECTION
Learning from this assessment and progress, being planned are action plans to expand the program by preparing the students to get into the tertiary level and further strengthening the supplemental activities for a more comprehensive measurement of its contributions to the improvement of the quality of education that the scholars receive.
Holcim Philippines, Inc. (Philippine Stock Exchange: HLCM) is one of the leading construction solution companies in the country. The Company has a wide range of innovative construction solution that help homeowners to large contractors in their building needs. Holcim Philippines is a member of the LafargeHolcim Group, the world leader in the building material industry present in 90 countries with over 100,000 employees.
