The British School Manila (BSM), a private international school in Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig, has become a host for the city's coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination on Friday.
“As a school, we are so pleased that we have an incredibly positive and collaborative support of partnership with the City of Taguig and, of course, the Department of Education-Taguig as well,” Martin van der Linde, head of school, told the Manila Bulletin.
British School Manila voluntarily offered to host the inoculation program, becoming the first international school in the country to become a vaccination site.
The one-day vaccination will benefit about 550 employees and personnel from different international schools including The Beacon School, Manila Japanese School, Everest Academy, and Chinese International School, elementary schools in Taguig, and Market Market shopping mall.
“Recent conversations in the last two weeks as the vaccine has rolled out, British School Manila offered to be a host center for the vaccine, particularly for schools. It was offered to Mayor Lino (Cayetano) who was very pleased with our offer and has now given us the opportunity to use the school as a host vaccine site,” said Van der Linde.
Cayetano dropped by to acknowledge BSM’s participation in the city's vaccination program.
“The City of Taguig is really happy and proud to partner with the international school community and particularly proud of our relationship with The British School Manila. We thank them for hosting this on behalf of all the international schools here in the City of Taguig. We want to get our schools 100 percent vaccinated. And I’ll be here again in one month when we announce that the British School Manila and other international schools are 100 percent vaccinated. We’re on the path to opening up our schools so our children can go back to school,” said the mayor.
According to Van der Linde, while the initial vaccination rollout in the school is only for one day, British School Manila has offered that “any time, should there be a need to roll out another day, we are available. We have made our personnel, resources and our infrastructure available at any time to support the City of Taguig in this procedure and their rollout program.”
Amid the ongoing pandemic, the British School Manila, he said, has “embraced the opportunities provided for us to continue giving our students the best possible education.”
“We have run education programs for our staff around the pandemic, we have run education programs on the vaccination. We are very proud of the fact that we have a 100 percent commitment from our staff to get the vaccine,” the school head added.
British School Manila has retained all of its staff. It also gave care packages to its staff in “troubled areas” while its clinic operates daily to provide support.
“Our morale is very good. We have established a very strong well-being program for our staff, which matches and runs parallel with our whole school well-being program to support our students at the community. All things considered, we have been very successful in our educational program and very successful in maintaining the morale of our staff through all of this,” he said.