IN A bid to promote reading as means to help children excel academically, the Junior Chamber International (JCI) Kagayhaan Gold commenced the Project RAW held at Initao Central School, Initao town, Misamis Oriental last Saturday, February 2.
Project RAW (Read and Win) is a project organized by the new members of the JCI Kagayhaan Gold, or as they call them “babies,” inspired from a project that last year's babies conducted called Project Libro wherein books were given to the children of Talakag.
“As babies, they need to do a project and it's up to them what project would they like and then they have to propose that project to the general membership. Once the general membership approves, that's the time that they can conduct their project,” Keny Waban, the executive vice president of JCI Kagayhaan Gold, said.
The Project RAW is composed of four activities: the “It's a Fitness! It's Zumba!;” Book Giving Activity to Share the Love of Reading, wherein books were turned over to the principal of Initao Central School; Read-a-thon; and Promoting Overall Health, wherein school supplies and health kits were given to 40 grade 4 kids.
In the Read-a-thon activity, the children were divided into groups consisting of five members and they were given five stories to be read in three minutes. After the time is up, they have to pass the story to another person until all five members have read the story.
After that, they were given a quiz to check if the understood the stories that they read.
“We believe that once a kid is a reader then the kid is a winner. Once a kid can read, therefore ang (the) academic performance ng (of the) kid will increase also,” Waban said.
“One of the reasons why kids are not performing that much because the schools also don't have the resources. To answer to their call, we gave books to them,” she added.
The babies or the new members of the JCI Kagayhaan Gold will be having their induction ceremony on Saturday, February 9, at the Dynasty Hotel.