To provide educational materials to underprivileged students, a teacher from Batac City in Ilocos Norte built satellite libraries in remote areas of the city.

Allan Garcia, a Head Teacher III from Batac National High School (BNHS) under the Department of Education (DepEd) Schools Division Office (SDO) of Batac, came up with an initiative that would help students who do not have access to resources and other learning materials.

Dubbed “911 Library,” the project aims to provide accessible educational materials for students. It was named after SDO's “911 Klasrum” which is a system used to provide feedback, information, and other relevant reminders using social media platform such as Facebook Messenger.

“It is going back to the traditional yet reliable means of getting knowledge and supplementary information,” Garcia explained. “A learner does not need to navigate around the bushes, between or on top of trees and roofs just to rummage a precious fiber of internet connection,” he added.

Garcia expressed gratitude to Schools Division Superintendent Dr. Joel Lopez and other partner agencies who “supported us to realize this innovation.”

Commended by DepEd

Meanwhile, Education Leonor Briones lauded the efforts of Garcia and the SDO in providing a comfortable place to study for Batac City students despite the pandemic.

“Civilization can only move forward through innovation,” Briones said. “We should start innovation not at the university level, but the basic education level,” she added.

Briones added that the “notion of innovation, the desire for knowledge, of creating something helpful out of what is going on around us, has to be inculcated to our learners.”

Shared responsibility

The satellite library was implemented this March this year in Barangays of Baay, Bil-loca, and Bungon.

DepEd said that barangay officials were given responsibilities and roles as librarians through seminar-workshop and were trained on how to set up a library - including book tag, logbook arrangement, and other library duties .

To formalize this partnership, the BNHS also signed Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with three barangays. The agreement aims to strengthen community participation and to encourage book appreciation as references and additional reading materials in modular learning. The said MOA also outlined the responsibilities of the parties who are implementing the project.

Meanwhile, Garcia also sought help from stakeholders in their community to improve the library such as the placement of bookshelves and provisions of additional reference materials.

Among those who supported the project are the Extension Government of Ilocos Norte, Magilas Distribution and Trading Corporation, Northwestern University, and Northern Christian College, which gave P150, 000 worth of high quality books and reference materials, as well also Divine Word College of Laoag with P250, 000 worth of donation book.

“With the overwhelming donations from partners, we are already having a scarcity of bookshelves, so I am planning to expand and put up more 911 Libraries in the City,” Garcia said.

With the success of the project, Garcia looks forward to other initiatives that are in line with DepEd’s “Hamon: Bawat Bata Bumabasa” program.

“Aside from updated books in the library, I’m hoping to come up with complete facilities such as computer units, laptop, printer, Wi-Fi connections, 911 Library multicab/patrol to ferry learners from their home to the community library, free snacks for the learners, free school supplies and art materials, and to intensify tutorial sessions and reading programs,” Garcia added.