IPS 13 December 2019
Most people would not think twice about throwing out old plastic bags, empty soda cans, scrap metal and used shampoo bottles. But for the students of Cavite Institute in the Philippines, trash like this has become their ticket out of poverty. (950 Words) - By Kara Santos
The cost of the trash collected by students will be deducted from the class scholar’s tuition fees. Photo: Kara Santos/IPS
This is because their non-profit private school, located in
Silang in Cavite province, some 45 kilometres south of the
Philippine capital of Manila, has a scholarship programme that
allows its 852 students to pay school fees with recyclables instead
of cash.
Called WISHCRAFT, which stands for 'We Integrate Scholarship with
the Collection of Recyclables and Frequently Generated Trash', the
programme has enabled students from low-income families to enroll
in the school and obtain scholarships and tuition fee
discounts.
Arvee Rose Abayabay, a fourth-year high school student, is one of
those benefiting from the school's programme. Her mother just left
for Kuwait to work as a sewer while her father serves in the local
council.
"It's a good programme for the students because it helps us a lot,
especially in paying our tuition fees," says Abayabay, who plans to
pursue a degree in nursing or food technology in university. "The
programme helps both students and the parents transform garbage
into money for education while helping the environment."
Elin Mondejar, who conceptualised the WISHCRAFT Programme at the
Cavite Institute, tells IPS how it works.
"All students who bring in recyclables automatically get a credit
equivalent discount on their school fees. The discount may be used
by the student or donated to another student in need," says
Mondejar.
Students, parents, teachers or individuals who endorse student
applicants bring in recyclable items like cartons, paper, plastic,
newspapers and glass bottles to a materials recovery facility right
beside the school, where the items are then weighed and
recorded.
The school partnered with an intermediary, who delivers the
recyclables to junk shops and gives the payment collected from
these to the school's accounting unit, which then does the
corresponding deductions according to the record of recyclables
submitted per student.
On average, tuition and other educational and project fees at the
Cavite Institute total 30,000 pesos (680 U.S. dollars) a year or
more for students, who are from the pre- school to high school
level. School officials say that 40 to 50 percent of the students
now avail of the discounts, with some paying 25 percent less in
tuition fees due to the credits they earn from bringing in
recyclable refuse.
The equivalent cost of each recyclable item depends on the type,
number and quality of the goods. For instance, copper wire is
traded at 150 pesos (3.4 dollars) a kilogramme while white paper
fetches six pesos (13 cents) a kg.
School principal Corrine Realica adds that students and teachers
segregate and clean items before they bring them in, as clean items
bring in more money than dirty and unsorted ones.
"While most rely on their own household trash, some have branched
out to their relatives and neighbors and set up collection centres
to go towards their tuition fund," Realica tells IPS. "Even
teachers who aren't sending children to school have adopted
scholars because they don't want their trash at home to go to
waste."
Special education students who are unable to afford school fees
have also been supported by corporate sponsorships through
WISHCRAFT. Two such students have full scholarships under the
multinational consumer goods firm Unilever, which donates proceeds
from its recyclable garbage towards the students' tuition.
Realica says the bulk trash donated by the company makes quite a
difference because the tuition for special education students costs
as much as 50,000 pesos a year (1,140 dollars), an amount way above
what low-income families make in a country where 44 percent or over
40 million Filipinos live on less than two dollars a day.
A joint study by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and
the non-government Philippine Institute for Development Studies
(PIDS) says that the number of children aged 6-16 who are not
attending school rose from 1.8 million in 2002 to 2.2 million in
2007, partly due to the high cost of education.
The WISHCRAFT programme, which was pilot-tested in 2002 and
launched in 2004, is now considered a best practice for innovation,
resourcefulness, cost-effectiveness, replicability and
partnerships. There have been various spin-offs of this programme
around the country.
A farm school uses the same trash-to-cash concept to raise money
for teachers' salaries. In a public school where tuition fees are
free, recyclables brought in by students are logged and are
convertible to school supplies. An out- of-school group set up a
theatre group where the entrance fees are recyclables instead of
cash.
"There is really money in garbage, and the possibilities are
endless," says Mondejar. "It makes students see garbage in a
different light."
Mondejar says that the Cavite Institute programme benefits
students who want better quality education, but cannot afford the
tuition fees. The school limits its class size to 25 to 30
students, compared to public schools in the area that can have up
to 70 pupils in one classroom.
From 48 scholars in schoolyear 2002-2003, the number of students
having full or partial scholarships or tuition-fee discounts now
averages 500 annually.
The programme makes two social priorities meet and thrive on each
other - keeping youngsters in school and helping clean the
environment. "To date over 300 tonnes of recyclables which could
have been disposed of in rivers, canals and highways have been
converted to a more worthy cause - education," Mondejar points
out.
Originally published by Inter Press Service. © www.streetnewsservice.org