The sun always shines on reading
[see news clipping]

Posted: 6:45 PM (Manila Time) | Jan. 26, 2002
Inquirer News Service

A RIVER runs through it, but now there's even more to rave about in Marikina with the program "Sa Aklat Sisikat," which was launched at the Calumpang Elementary School on a recent sunny morning.

The passions of Lizzie Zobel, Margarita Delgado and friends first fired the literacy campaign in 1999. That year, they took it to 10 elementary schools—all in the forgotten city of Manila. When they found out that poor eyesight was an impediment to the success of the program, they jumpstarted a related project with the Department of Health and volunteer physicians called "My Eyes Can See." Not the types to be content with distributing eyeglasses to students to enable them to read, they ended the "Sa Aklat

Sisikat" campaign with a big contest among the participating schools' best readers.

After that, Zobel, Delgado and associates took time off to fine-tune their campaign and formally unite into a foundation.

The good news is that they are back with a vengeance and have hit the suburbs. Marikina is their first host city outside of Manila, and if you've guessed that it has something to do with the city's new "go get and wow 'em" woman mayor, Marides C. Fernando, you've just won the jackpot.
The students, teachers and staff of Calumpang Elementary School welcomed the foundation officers and volunteers as well as city officials and representatives from the Department of Education and Culture with a short presentation. The launch ended with flying doves, balloons and fireworks, Marikina being a city enamored with the idea of starting everything with a bang. Hopefully, from now on, not only a river but also passion for reading and learning will run through the valley.