Ang Galing! A Literacy Program
Ang Galing, Philippines: a program to teach the children of the North Manila Cemetery to read and write.
Since the early 2010s, access to quality education for all has been at the heart of ATD Fourth World’s priorities. In this series, you will learn about the work of ATD Fourth World teams in education, including early childhood education.
This website will feature regular publications showcasing ATD Fourth World’s educational achievements in the months ahead. These accounts tell the story of ATD Fourth World initiatives and demonstrate the teams’ collaboration with children, families, and communities.
We will explore the work of teams dedicated to supporting specific aspects of children’s lives and development. One team aims to reinforce family ties, another assists with children’s schooling and academic success, while another contributes to the cultural enrichment of neighborhood children…
Each of these narratives threads together to form a vibrant framework for a society that can offer quality education for all — including children in poverty.
“What’s it for?”
One year ago, we started this series of articles with the story of Cathy Doce, who participated in the “street library under the bridge” in Manilla (Philippines) during her childhood and eventually became a community facilitator at the library herself.
Cathy was outraged to see that, as they became adults, some of the classmates with whom she had grown up and participated in the street library with had continued to experience the same intolerable living conditions as their parents had. Cathy shook up the team of volunteers and activity leaders at the street library, and she asked them to go further in their efforts to transform the futures of children from the same background as her. The street libraries, as informal and freely accessible places to share knowledge on the street, are crucial; Cathy doesn’t discount them fundamentally, and she continues to offer them to children in her community. However, they are not enough to transform the children’s living conditions. There continues to be a disconnect between progress at street libraries and progress at school, and some children — despite being skilled readers — are still being left behind: you may recall the story of Veronica from Guatemala, for example, who was the co-creator of the Reading Club in Escuintla, and a great reader, yet was still failing at school.
Specific programs to allow children to succeed at school
As a result, several ATD Fourth World teams have prioritized the objective of transforming the futures of children by improving the education that they receive. This month’s story is about one attempt to do so. It follows the creation and the successes of the Ang Galing learning program, which was designed in Manilla by the ATD Fourth World team following Cathy’s reflections.
The team of activity leaders tell the story of Edmer and, through his journey, explore the lives of those who live in the North Manilla Cemetery and work side by side with ATD Volunteer Corps members to overcome extreme poverty.
We are delighted to be publishing this story, as the Ang Galing program began again in March 2024, after being interrupted for several years due to Covid-19. As a consequence of the pandemic, schools in the Philippines were shut for over two years; children and young people living in extreme poverty suffered, in particular losing out on even the most basic schooling and professional training.
Faced with this situation, the significance of the Ang Galing program is clear. This story describes the energy and creative resources supplied by both the ATD Fourth World team and the local community in committing to transforming these children’s future!