lapis at papel initiative

"Lapis" means pencil and "papel" means paper, thus "lapis at papel initiative" or "paper and pencil initiative".

This initiative was born when one summer I went to the barrio where my mom used to teach in a primary school. I saw the conditions of the school. The six-classroom school before is now a three-classroom school. The three classrooms were destroyed during one of the numerous typhoons that visits our island province of Catanduanes every year. So from then on, no repairs were done on the destroyed classrooms.

Because of the lack of classrooms, the school devised a way for the school and the pupils to finished their primary grade. In one school year, they have Grade 1, Grade 3, and Grade 5 students. The following year, the students will be in Grade 2, Grade 4 and Grade 6. So the next school year, will then be again Grade 1, Grade 3 and Grade 5. And the cycle continues.

Although the primary public schools are free, I found out that most pupils cannot continue their schooling because of lack of basic school materials, such as, papers and pencils. They would rather stay at home and not go to school.

Thus, this initiative came to be ...