Reading for Hope
/Ms. Ana is the chief storyteller and project leader at the nongovernment, all volunteer Dagdag Dunong Reading Centers, and over the past 20+ years she has dedicated herself to making a difference in the lives of poor Filipino children.
Ms. Ana reading to Mangyan children on Mindoro (Photo courtesy of Ms Ana Bacudio)
From humble beginnings, Ms. Ana and her husband converted their garage into a reading room equipped with books and began offering free read-along and storytelling activities to street children in Manila. Since then, Ms. Ana has not wavered in her mission to promote literacy through reading advocacy and other relevant educational activities among poor Filipino children.
In 2006, she opened the Dagdag Dunong Reading Center in Malate, Manila and spearheaded the Matuto sa Lakwatsa program, an initiative that provides students the opportunity to go on free educational trips to museums, zoos and parks. She and her volunteer team saw the realization of a new dream this past September. With partial funding from WaterBridge Outreach: Books + Water www.waterbridgeoutreach.org, a small nonprofit based in San Francisco, the 2nd Dagdag Dunong Reading Center was built to serve indigenous and impoverished Mangyan children residing in Baco, Mindoro.
Ms. Ana and the newly opened 2nd Dagdag Dunong Reading Center in Baco, Mindoro (Photo courtesy of Ms Ana Bacudio)
Although construction took longer than anticipated with setbacks from typhoons and the COVID pandemic, Ms. Ana and her team persevered, and the reading/literacy center opened with much fanfare and a blessing ceremony on September 8.
Ms. Ana and the full shelves in the 2nd Dagdag Dunong Reading Center’s library (Photo courtesy of Ms Ana Bacudio)
The 2nd Dagdag Dunong Reading Center is designed to be typhoon- and flood-proof, and provides a safe, welcoming place for indigenous children to improve their reading and writing skills. These children and their families are for the most part desperately poor, deprived by the government of basic human rights, and discriminated against for being members of indigenous tribes of Mangyan people who have lived in Mindoro since before the Spaniards colonized the Philippines.
Ms. Ana reading to Mangyan children in the 2nd Dagdag Dunong Reading Center (Photo courtesy of Ms Ana Bacudio)
The children’s smiles hide the oppression they experience, according to Ms. Ana. They have no potable water and no electricity. Their family lands are being confiscated from their parents by government-backed mining companies that are eager to profit. Due to the existing mines and a hundred applications for new mines pending, the habitats of the Mangyan people are at risk of being destroyed. This risk is intensified by the armed conflict in Mindoro between government armed forces and armed local groups resisting the mining.
“The 2nd Dagdag Dunong Reading Center is designed to be typhoon- and flood-proof, and provides a safe, welcoming place for indigenous children to improve their reading and writing skills.”
As part of the literacy program at the new Dagdag Dunong Reading Center, Ms. Ana is teaching the Mangyan children to read and write in their native language as well as in Tagalog and English. The Mangyan tribes write in a system that is based on the original Philippine phonetic system in Baybayin, which was discarded when the Spaniards arrived on the island. The Mangyans offer a rich artistic and linguistic heritage, which must not be allowed to end. The National Museum of the Philippines declared the Mangyan tribes’ system of writing a “National Cultural Treasure” in 1997, and in 1999 UNESCO inscribed Mangyan scripts in the “Memory of the World” registry. And yet, little is known about them.
Ms. Ana recognizing the accomplishments of Mangyan students who received top academic marks on recent exams. These students also assist Ms. Ana at the 2nd Dagdag Dunong Reading Center (Photo courtesy of Ms Ana Bacudio)
With her volunteer team, Ms. Ana ensures that both reading centers come alive with literacy and other educational activities for disadvantaged children. The reading centers not only nourish the children's minds with books, but also their bodies by providing healthy meals each day. The children also have access to running water and toilets. During the COVID pandemic, extra efforts have been made to assist children and their families with their immediate needs by providing the basics of life (food and clean water) to families in their communities.
Outreach room in the 2nd Dagdag Dunong Reading Center where Ms. Ana and her husband Virgilio provide books and rice to Mangyan children in need (Photo courtesy of Ms Ana Bacudio)
The ground floor of 2nd Dagdag Dunong Reading Center has an enclosed, secure parking space for a very special vehicle -- a mobile library known as the Jeepney of Hope. When WaterBridge Outreach donated copies of the children’s picture book, Waiting for the Biblioburro (written by Monica Brown and illustrated by John Parra), to Dagdag Dunong, the story of real-life librarian Luis Soriano and his mobile library of donkeys in Columbia convinced Ms. Ana that she could do something similar in the Philippines. The result, a “biblioburro” for Dadgag Dunong in the form of a brand new silver, four-wheel drive jeep funded by WaterBridge Outreach. The Jeepney of Hope is loaded with books and literacy materials, sun umbrellas and mats. With Ms. Ana at the wheel, it offers free story time sessions and literacy activities for children in remote, often hard to reach areas that are frequently neglected by government officials.
Ms. Ana and the Jeepney of Hope mobile library funded by WaterBridge Outreach: Books + Water (Photo courtesy of Ms. Ana Bacudio)
Ms. Ana is seen by many as an angel to children in need in the Philippines. With a strong faith in God and a conviction that her calling is to help the disadvantaged. She is strongly supported by her husband, Virgilio, and their three grown children. She has received many awards for her work. Dagdag Dunong Reading Center was nominated for the prestigious International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) - Asahi Reading Promotion Award in 2012, the 2018 International Educator Award from the United Federation of Fil-Am Educators (UNIFFIED), the Jollibee Family Values Award (2019), and Mayor Alfredo Lim’s Plaque of Recognition for rendering exemplary service in the field of education. WaterBridge Outreach has been honored to provide financial support to Ms. Ana in continuing her efforts to educate underserved and unjustly treated children in the Philippines and to provide them with hope for a better future.
Corinne Robinson is Projects Manager at WaterBridge Outreach: Books + Water, a small California 501(c)(3) organization that donates books and literacy materials in English and local languages, supports mobile and stationary libraries, and finances clean water and sanitation projects in communities and villages in the developing world. Our book and water projects in communities in the Philippines, Cambodia, Haiti, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Uganda and Tanzania serve those who have long experienced poverty, discrimination, and living on the edge of communities with little to minimal infrastructure.
To learn more and support our work visit www.waterbridgeoutreach.org
