Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation Inc.

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Star Teacher Magazine | HSBC's READiscovery Center | Library Hub in Guimaras

Star Teacher Magazine

Published by Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation and Summit Media, this magazine is designed to be inspiring, entertaining, and informative. It promises to be the lifestyle magazine for all types of educators. It builds pride and confidence in its readers and supports them in improving themselves as educators, persons, and proponents of reading and critical thinking among their students. Feature stories include self-improvement articles, teacher/teaching program success stories, and celebrity stories with a slant on education and learning experiences. It also helps readers become more effective teachers and promoters of literacy by providing educational information and useful teaching techniques. Practical advice and tips on dealing with real-life, everyday problems both in and out of school are also tackled.

HSBC's READiscovery Center

The name READiscovery Center captures the heart of what HSBC and the Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation (SAS) want to achieve. These centers aim at making students, teachers, and even parents discover and rediscover the joys and wonders of reading. And through reading, they can discover new things, places, and ideas. In essence, HSBC and SAS envisioned these centers to be a prime learning and fun environment where Filipino children can discover the world through books, technology, multi-media equipment and creatively unique library programs in support of SAS’ vision of building a nation of readers. Its mission is that through the READiscovery Program, the Filipino child can develop leadership skills, values and knowledge, towards becoming responsible and productive citizens.

To be able to reach such a vision, HSBC and SAS has gone through great lengths to ensure that the best technologies and practices were used in developing the READiscovery Center Program. In terms of the design, the prestigious Leandro V. Locsin Partners took special care to make these centers not only look good aesthetically but more importantly functional as well. The multi-media equipment brought in are top-notch from 29” TVs, DVD players, to Pentium IV computers.And of course the books and audio/video collection number in the thousands including an impressive collection of Children’s storybooks and Filipiniana. By the end of January 2004, we have instilled the love and habit of reading among more than 1,800 Grade 4 public school children. And we have given more than 12,500 public elementary students the opportunity to browse through more than 20,000 books in the READiscovery Centers.

Library Hub in Guimaras

The Petron Foundation, in cooperation with the Petron Dealers Association is sponsoring the construction of a Library Hub in Guimaras Province. The Library Hub is a project conceptualized by the Department of Education (DepEd) in response to the problem of inadequate books and teaching resources supplies in the public schools system. The construction and establishment of the hub will be managed by SAS in coordination with the DepEd Office in Guimaras.

In a "hub" and "spoke" model, the Library Hub attempts to provide books and resources to the teachers, librarians and administrators of several school forms from a centrally located warehouse setup. A Library Hub contains approximately 25,000 books available for 3-30-100 schools. The books are grouped into bundles. Each school may borrow a book bundle and store them in their libraries or reading corners making it available to their teachers and students for a period of 30 days. Book bundles are then returned to allow other schools access to the same materials. Likewise, these teachers may then check out other book bundles of their interest.

By bringing books to the school and inside the classrooms, teachers and administrators can make these books an integral part of their teaching and support the learning process of the students with their use. The Library Hub in Guimaras will be of service not only to the 99 elementary schools but to the entire community as it will house a multi-purpose room that can be a venue to trainings, meetings and more.