COA-M’s Social Development Unit launches first flagship project "Maligayang PasCOA: A Donation Drive"

QUEZON CITY, Philippines – The Social Development arm of Ateneo de Manila University’s Council of Organizations of the Ateneo - Manila (COA-M) recently launched their flagship initiative for the holiday season: Maligayang PasCOA: A Donation Drive. Through this project, COA-M collected donations of story books, textbooks, unused activity books and notebooks, workbooks, as well as other reading and writing materials from the Loyola Schools community and these were turned over to the Ateneo Center for Educational Development (ACED), a non-profit organization devoted to enhancing public basic education and literacy. The donation drive took place from November 21 to 25 at the MVP Lobby.

Maligayang PasCOA is the very first project headed by the Social Development arm of COA-M. This unit was formalized this year by the organization’s current Central Board and it is committed to handling disaster-response, donation efforts, and other social development initiatives as well as providing assistance for organizations on similar matters. On the one hand, this is an effort to consolidate social response within the Loyola Schools and on the other hand, its partnership with ACED allows the unit to reach communities outside Ateneo.

ACED aims to improve the performance of public school students by facilitating partnerships with individuals and institutions to marshal human and material resources to support its mission. In their many years of service, they have come to realize that the problems surrounding public education are multifaceted and interrelated. Among other issues affecting education, including malnutrition and poverty, ACED also aims to address the current state of illiteracy among many elementary students in the Philippines.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) Functional Literacy, Education, Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) conducted in 2019, only 52.4 percent of elementary graduates can read, write, compute, and comprehend, while the rest struggle with basic literacy skills (Mapa, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated this pressing issue.

Pushing forward with their commitment to literacy and education, ACED is currently partnering with like-minded organizations for community engagements and they also encourage the implementation of tutorial programs, if possible through innovative means given various digital resources.

With the success of the donation drive, COA-M hopes that Maligayang PasCOA will be the first of many collaborations moving forward.

To know more about ACED’s various programs and initiatives, please send them an email at aced@ateneo.edu or visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AteneoACED.

You may also wish to support their Food Packs program which seeks to address hunger and malnutrition among public school students in order to improve educational outcomes. You can contribute by purchasing ACED Christmas e-cards for a donation of at least P120. P120 is enough to augment the meals of beneficiaries for one week. For more details, you may visit https://tinyurl.com/ACEDChristmas2022.