BIND works to promote and strengthen education and literacy as key elements in achieving food security and sustainable development under its Education and literacy for Human and Environmental Development (ELHED) program.
BIND makes use of the formal and non-formal education. Formal education consist of college scholarship for the academically qualified children of farmers-partners from various program areas. The non-formal education refers to adult literacy and continuing education divided into literacy workshops based on generative themes, the publication and dissemination of educational materials and set up of community reading centers.
Critical literacy makes use of learning and teaching of wisdom based on the analysis and dialogue of farmers themselves and the NGO's, development partner agencies like HEKS and various government institutions. Concretely, farmers learn to formulate written policies, improve local governance processes, strengthen their organizations and creating opportunities for the development of their marginal communities.
BIND signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with nine 2005 ELHED grantees, and witnessed by representatives of the community-based organizations and BIND's field staff.
BND Executive Director Eva la Merced said that ELHED grantees are very special breed of scholars; their mission is to change their not only their lives but also to help develop their rural communities and the country. Moreover, they have shoulder responsibilities in protecting and caring for the environment.
In the afternoon, the group made their plan of action for SY 2005-2006. This is ELHED’s new approach to improve the implementation of Food Security Program especially in the farms of the scholars’ parents and in their requirement for the community immersion.
Except for a few, however, ELHED graduates use their college diplomas to gain whatever work—usually off-farm—in towns and cities. They cannot afford to be picky about jobs since employment opportunities are scarce because of the country’s economic and political problems.
Whatever jobs are available, the ELHED graduates work experience to gain and hope that eventually they can land a job suited to their college training.
So far, 14 graduates are working in Manila, 30 work in Negros, one abroad and another in Cebu, a nearby Visayan province. They work in government or in sales--as office clerks, drivers, cooks, cashiers, or manage their own farms or small and medium-scale businesses with their husbands. Despite their meager wages or salaries, they earn much more than if they stayed in their farms, which would have been the case without their college diplomas.
Whatever their income level, one thing runs common: they all spend a sizable amount of their earnings to provide for their money for their family, even with the education of their siblings. Having a college education could liberate them from ignorance and from the bondage of poverty, marginalization and powerlessness.