Art Baldestoy, the gentle giant of the Grade 2 class
By Marge Francia
Millions of Filipino children are unable to continue their studies because of poverty. UNICEF supports and capacitates schools that bring back students with a renewed zest for learning, regardless of age or sex.
Art Baldestoy, 18 years old, is one of around 20 over age students from the 357 that attend Acereda Elementary School. Towering over his classmates, the timid teenager quietly sits in class poring over his lessons. He is shy and withdrawn, and very few know of the ordeal that he has gone through at such a young age.
A few years ago, Art was a malnourished, sickly child with nowhere to go. His parents got sick and both died, and his siblings married in their young age. The child was left to fend for himself when he was found by Barangay Kagawad Felicitas Tolitol and her family.
“My husband saw him giving food to his brothers and sisters. He was really thin, about 13 years old then. We took him to be baptized. We asked him if he wanted to live with us and that he only needed to share in the family chores. Now, he calls me mother and we treat him like he is family. He is an obedient child,” Felicitas recalls.
Stones for sale
Just a few years ago Art used to collect gravel from the mountains with his older siblings. He would lift heavy cans filled with gravel and transport them by boat before selling them. He had to fill 52 big biscuit cans of gravel to earn P 180 pesos, about 3 US dollars. This he did with his frail, young body. Because of poverty, his family did not make education a priority. This story is the same for many young boys and girls who live in Acereda whose families sell copra and work in the ricefields.
“Even if these children wanted to study, they couldn’t because their parents did not want them to. I saw that this child really wants to study and told him about the importance of education. If he needs to vote, I don’t have to go with him because he would know how to read and write. It’s okay with him because there are other students like him. Sometimes there are also parents who attend literacy classes here in Acereda,” Felicitas explains.
The blossoming adolescent
The motivation to learn to read and write became more pronounced when Art started having crushes, and would show his adoptive mother the letters he wanted to send to the girl he likes.
“I told him, so now you know what it feels like to not have a proper education. I told him, there, that’s one of the reasons you need to stay in school. You need to be able to vote, to know what the road signs say, to send out letters to your crushes. Now, he goes to school with my own child and studies his lessons well,” she beams with pride.
“He is very quiet but he I can see that he is determined. He can follow the lessons we teach him,” Teacher Maura Arlita Sayde says.
From being a frail and sickly child, Art now has high hopes for a bright future. Asked about what he wants to be someday, he shyly replies, “I want to be a singer.” Who knows, maybe in five or ten years, Northern Samar might be singing songs of triumph for the one Nortehanon who has surmounted all odds to become all that wants to be.
For more information on what UNICEF Philippines does to improve education in the country, click here.
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Children First Newsletter (Q4 2009 Issue)
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