DAMMAM, 30 August 2007 — A group of Filipino workers in the Eastern Province has launched a book collection drive in behalf of children from poor families in their hometown in the southern Philippines.

Organized by the United Surigaonon Association in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia (USA-EPSA), the project dubbed Aklat Mo, Tagumpay Ko (Your Book, My Success) intends to collect old books from Filipino students in Dammam and Alkhobar to be shipped to far-flung areas in Surigao del Sur province.

USA-EPSA President Imelda Manalang said the group thought of the project in view of the severe shortage of textbooks for public school students at home.

Manalang noted that whenever textbooks produced by the government runs short, children from remote places are always the first to suffer.

Manalang, a teacher at the Philippine School in Dammam, said Filipino students in the Kingdom are fortunate that their parents can afford to buy new textbooks for them every year.

“After each school year, these books are no longer used, so we might as well ask the owners to donate them to poor students at home,” she said.

Claire Cagampang, PSD administrator and head of the association’s education committee, stressed that while these books are second-hand, they could mean a lot to students at home.

To get the ball rolling, Manalang and Kimverlie Molina, PSD Student Council president, signed a memorandum of agreement to jointly conduct the book collection drive. “We are much honored to be part of this noble project. I am sure that for every book that we donate, we could change the lives of the poor students back home, which may lead to their own success,” Molina said.

Witnessing to the ceremony were Labor Attaché David Des Dicang and Charlie Dahug, manager of the DCF Cargo Forwarder, which was tapped by the group to ship the books from Dammam to Surigao.

Student councils at the International Philippine School in Alkhobar (IPSA) and the Al Andalus International School (AAIS) were expected to follow suit, according to Raquel Arana, USA-EPSA secretary.

Upon hearing about this project, Ambassador Antonio Villamor lauded the Surigaonons for the initiative. “We will consider this as a pilot project and I will also encourage other Filipino groups and schools in the Kingdom to do the same,” Villamor told Arab News.