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The Citigroup Success Fund:
Awards for Innovation in Reading Programs towards Nation Building

Signing memorandum of agreement were Lilibeth Fajardo and Hans Sicat of Citigroup, Undersecretary Fe Hidalgo of DepEd and Margarita Delgado and Lizzie Zobel of SAS Foundation

The Citigroup Success Fund: Awards for Innovation in Reading Programs towards Nation Building was launched last September 14th at the Top of the Citi in Makati City. The project brings together Citigroup, the Department of Education and Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation. A Memorandum of Agreement was signed by the Department of Education Secretary Francisco B. Abad and Undersecretary Fe Hidalgo, Citigroup’s Hans Sicat and Lillibeth Fajardo and Margarita Delgado and Lizzie Zobel for Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation. These three organizations share a vision of building a nation of readers where the Filipino child’s intellectual, ethical and social development will be nurtured.

The Citigroup Success Fund is open to all Sa Aklat Sisikat schools. Each school is being tasked to put together a team of three to six teachers who will propose an innovative way to teach children from grades 1-6 to read. It is hoped that these new programs will help in fostering community pride and nation building.

An innovation in itself, the Philippines’ Citigroup Success Fund looks for new ways of teaching our children how to read, with the ultimate objective of instilling the desire and love for reading among our young. The program also promotes teamwork among our public school teachers and works toward helping build a nation, not just of readers but of individuals with proper values, attitudes and perspectives as Filipinos. In working with Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation, Citigroup envisions this program to encourage teachers to go beyond the Sa Aklat Sisikat reading program experience and to come up with more innovative ways to teach our Filipino children to read.

This awards program is supported by Citigroup Foundation who is committed to developing educational programs in many different countries. Not only does the Foundation provide grants, it encourages its employees worldwide to participate in the various programs available in their home countries. The Citigroup Success Fund has been implemented in the US, Taiwan, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The deadline for proposals will be on November 15, 2004. Proposals will be judged on its innovativeness, resourcefulness, creativity, sustainability and transferability. Cash grants will be given to the best thirty (30) ideas and will be awarded in February 2005.