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Empowering the Filipino:
For 45 years, Ayala Foundation has been working to
enhance the lives of Filipinos. Many changes have taken
place since 1961 when Col. Joseph McMiking and his wife,
Mercedes Zobel, established Filipinas Foundation, the
precursor of Ayala Foundation. What has not changed
is the foundation's commitment to contribute to national
development by creating programs that enrich, empower,
and enable the Filipino people. According to Ayala Foundation
president, Victoria Garchitorena, the foundation has
continuously worked "to support and enhance our
projects and deliver the best results for our staff,
partners, donors, clients, and beneficiaries. We continue
to seek ways to bridge gaps, empower and inspire."
Ayala Foundation views the Filipino as a partner, a
perspective that turns bystanders beneficiaries into
co-authors of our nation's progress. This view has the
power to infuse people with a do-it-yourself spirit
that can truly animate a project, inspire action, and
create lasting positive change.
This spirit is evident in the projects of the foundation's
Center for Social Development. One such project is Gearing-Up
Internet Literacy and Access for Students, or GILAS,
a multi-sectoral initiative involving leaders from the
country's leading telecommunications firms, software
and computer companies, and socio-civic organizations,
along with the Department of Education and the Department
of Trade and Industry. GILAS's goal is ambitious: to
connect all public high schools in the Philippines to
the Internet by the year 2010.
As of year-end 2004, only about 40 percent of the public
high schools in the Philippines had computer laboratories,
and less than 6 percent had access to the World Wide
Web. This technology dearth in our public schools ensures
that our graduates will be less able to compete in the
global marketplace.
Since the inception of GILAS, more than 1000 public
high schools in the Philippines have been connected
to the Internet. Overwhelming support has poured in
for the project. GILAS has been able to engage all sectors
of Filipino society to share its vision of providing
Internet literacy to our youth, successfully turning
a daunting task into a doable one.
The Center for Social Development also organizes the
Ayala Young Leaders Congress, an annual three-day summit
that convenes 70 top student leaders from colleges and
universities around the country. Now on its ninth year,
the congress is part of the Ayala group of companies'
leadership program, Shaping Tomorrow's Leaders. The
Ayala Young Leaders Alliance, composed of congress alumni,
now has 16 chapters around the Philippines that have
been actively and independently showing community leadership
by responding to disaster, holding inter-faith dialogues,
and publishing the country's first youth-empowerment
magazine, Starfish.
Ayala Foundation's Center of Excellence in Public Elementary
Education (CENTEX) is another projects that demonstrates
the power of working in communities. CENTEX was established
to provide bright children from poor families with an
excellent education. A collaborative project of Ayala
Foundation, Ayala Land, Inc., Globe Telecom, the local
government units of Manila and Batangas, the Department
of Education, and volunteers, CENTEX has established
that it is possible to improve the physical, financial,
and human resources of a public school and transform
it into a center for quality education.
CENTEX also succeeded in transforming the parents of
CENTEX graduates into entrepreneurs. CENTEX helped these
parents form a cooperative that successfully bid for
a slot in the College of the Holy Spirit Manila High-School-CENTEX
cafeteria. The proceeds of their food service cover
the food and transportation expenses of their children.
Ayala Foundation seeks to enrich the lives of Filipinos
by creating opportunities for continuing education and
discovery. These services are provided by the Ayala
Museum and the Filipinas Heritage Library with the goal
of establishing a sense of identity and a sense of pride
in our unique culture. The museum has taken great steps
in this respect, mounting its first international exhibition
of Philippine art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.
The exhibition, entitled Pioneers of Philippine Art:
Luna, Amorsolo, Zobel, chronicles one hundred years
of Philippine painting from the late 19th to the late
20th century through the work of three artists-Juan
Luna (1857-1899), Fernando Amorsolo (1892-1972), and
Fernando Zobel (1924-1984).
For its part, the Filipinas Heritage Library serves
as a knowledge hub, providing traditional library services
as well as workshops in writing, photography, documentary-making,
and other topics. The library also produces print and
electronic publications, and is presently digitizing
its entire collection. This is just one of the many
ways that Ayala Foundation leverages technology to support
and enhance its services.
The foundation is constantly stretching its boundaries
to bring its programs to more people. It has initiated
a community-based project called the Education and Livelihood
Skills Alliance, or ELSA, in an attempt to help the
youth of Mindanao whose lives have been disrupted by
armed conflict.
With the help of global, national, and local partners,
ELSA empowers and encourages Mindanao youth by giving
them access to education infrastructure and by implementing
inter-faith dialogues. These activities are envisioned
to help Mindanao youth become more involved and better
equipped to address the issues in their communities
and in the entire region.
Pushing even further, Ayala Foundation established Ayala
Foundation USA (AF USA) in 2000 to serve as a conduit
between the Philippines and the growing Fil-Am community
in the United States. AF USA advocates diaspora philanthropy
as a way of addressing development needs in the Philippines.
AF USA also creates opportunities for exchange among
Filipinos through its Fil-Am Youth Leaders Fellowship
program. Fellows of the program engage in a two-month
immersion in the Philippines and are exposed to the
harsh social realities of our country. The program seeks
to nurture the bond between Fil-Ams and their mother
country, and transform fellows into advocates of the
Philippines.
Ayala Foundation chairman Jaime Zobel de Ayala, once
wrote: "The Filipino is what moves and inspires
Ayala Foundation, what goads us to find the better solution,
the willing partners, and the resolve to persevere in
the face of difficulties." Ayala Foundation continues
to celebrate the Filipino, finding in him both the reason
and the reward for all its efforts. Mr. Zobel sums it
up: "In the end, what we are and always will be
is an organization of Filipinos committed to serving
fellow Filipinos."
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