YOU must be the CHANGE you want to see in the world.
-Mahatma Gandhi
How it began
In May of 2008, the T.A.R.P. Bag Project extended its reach as sponsors like Binalbagan CLET-F (Child Labor Education Task Force), the Municipality of Binalbagan headed by Mayor Alejandro "Bebot" Y. Mirasol and BIMEC (Binalbagan Municipal Employees’ Cooperative) pitched in to distribute 1,000 schoolbags sewn from the town’s used fiesta banners and rubber slippers. The women sewers came from the Binalbagan Vocational and Training Center headed by Mrs. Lilia Lachica.
PeacePond and PeacePrint provided additional 300 recycled tarpaulin schoolbags with school supplies to schools in the Binalbagan town proper.
The T.A.R.P. Bag Project’s goals were multi-fold: education, environmental responsibility through the tarp recycling component, women empowerment and livelihood opportunities through the employment of women sewers.
In July 2008, R.E.C.O.P. (Rural Educational & Cultural Outreach Program) was born over cups of coffee with a couple of teachers and a principal from a mountain school. The educators stressed the need for their students to have a fragment of the exposure and resources which students from the lowlands and poblacion enjoy. On July 28, we reached our first mountain school (Bulwang) with funding from the Mayor's Office of Mayor Bebot Mirasol. The project was an eye-opening 2-day experience for us, the first 15 volunteers. It encourage us to continue the project in more schools in the mountains of our district.
In September 2008, we sought the help of Negros Occidental Vice-Governor Dino Yulo. His office donated an LCD projector for our film showing, sacks for rice for the residents and P 9,000 for 3 meals of around 300 students and their parents. R.E.C.O.P. @ Nasanagan, our second project, was launched.
By July 2009, R.E.C.O.P. has gone to four schools with our meager resources. An international organization, the BODY SHOP FOUNDATION, has recognized our efforts for community service and awarded us with a small grant for the start of schoolyear 2009-2010.
Our Goal
"Dream, dream, dream. Dream transfers into thoughts. Thoughts result in action. If there are no dreams and no revolutionary thoughts, no action will emanate. Hence, parents and teachers should allow their children to dream. Success always follows dreams attempted, though there may be some setbacks and delays" - Avul Pakir Janulabdeen Abdul Kalam
In the mountains, schoolchildren are so bereft of resources. They have so little - no crayons, no notebooks, no picture books, a few pieces of pad paper. Most of them go hungry but they strive to go to school. Normally, a student owns only one pair of footwear - rubber slippers. Most of the children go barefoot on the schoolgrounds for fear their slippers would wear out fast. In one of the schools, most of the students have never seen modelling clay or a watercolor paint brush.
There is no electricity in these remote mountain areas. Only the most prominent family owns a generator-powered TV set. Most of the children have never been to town, much more to the bigger city.
It is no wonder that most of the children drop out by Grade 4, a little after they have learned the basics of reading, writing and mathematics. By the age of 15, girls are set off to be married while boys work the land of their parents. A motley few reach high school. College is unheard of.
We at R.E.C.O.P. believe that with exposure and resources, schoolchildren would learn how to dream of a better life. It is our hope that some would discover that they are not solely bound to the land they till and that there is a bigger world outside of that which they know of.
After all, there may be a painter, a sculptor, a teacher, a doctor, a nurse, an engineer or a President in one of them.
RECOP 2016 at the Plastic Bottle Learning Center
The center is a recycling model facility made of 3,212 PET softdrink bottles. It has a 24-seating capacity and a 30-free standing capacity. The "green" center has amenities like an LCD projector, sound system and electric fans. For live-in R.E.C.O.P. activities, sleeping bags and tents are available for workshop participants.