As a lean organization with a big dream -- giving away one million books to one million Filipino children -- we definitely look to our community for support. Partnerships with local government and like-minded organizations and individuals are key to reaching children who can benefit most from the story and activity books that we publish.
Last July, after many setbacks due to COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, we were finally able to turn over 2,000 books to the City of Manila. Our project donated 1,000 copies of #YOUTHink: Fight Fake News and 1,000 copies each of Safe Space: A Kid’s Guide to Data Privacy in both English and Filipino to be given away to children in Manila that lack access to books and educational materials. A set of hard bound CANVAS storybooks, mostly winning stories from the Romeo Forbes Children’s Story Writing Competition, were also donated to Manila’s Libraries.
The turn over coincided with National Children’s Book Day that is celebrated every third Tuesday of July.
Similarly, Salinlahi Alliance for Children's Concerns, a non-stock, non-profit national alliance, distributed 400 books of various titles to their communities in Marikina City. Our partner distributed the books from house-to-house or in open-air common areas such as the community's barangay halls. They told us that "Most of the children who received Sino Si Juan (an activity book) immediately grabbed their crayons and amusedly added color to the black and white illustrations."
Our project turned over 1,500 books to Salinlahi in April (300 of Karapat Dapat: Child, Know Your Rights, 300 of Sino Si Juan, and 900 of #YOUTHink: Fight Fake News). They are continuing their book-giving efforts and we are eager to hear how this goes.
As of this writing, we have given away 408,830 books to children all over the Philippines -- we are at 40% of our goal 1,000,000. Thank you very much for your generous support and encouragement!
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Thanks to your generous and continued support for our literacy program, we have donated 10,490 books (various titles) to children all over the Philippines since the start of this year, 2021. Our goal is to donate at least 50,000 books this year through our One Million Books for One Million Filipino Children Campaign.
As of this writing, we have donated a total of 395,779 books since the start of our project.
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Now that we are into the second year of the pandemic, we have become accustomed to many shifts in our daily lives. With many activities, work and schooling especially, having shifted online, we've found that our two newest books on internet safety, Safe Space: A Kid's Guide to Data Privacy and #YouThink: Fight Fake News, have become even more important. Geared towards ages 6-12 and 12 to 18 respectively, these two books break down internet safety and misinformation concepts into child-friendly language and empower children with the skills and sensitivity that will help them protect themselves as they navigate the web.
This May, we were able to give 1,024 copies of Safe Space and 1,024 copies of #YouThink to Comembo Elementary School. As COVID-19 protocol for schools now goes, the books were included in the children's weekly modules that are picked up by their parents or guardians. Just a few days after receiving their books, their teachers thought to use them in their class discussions on navigating the internet safely and responsibly!
AHA Learning Center, a non-profit that runs an after-school learning program, also received copies of Safe Space for their students and teachers, and has also connected us to other schools and communities in their network.
We are also proud to report that Safe Space has also been awared Privacy Initiative of 2021 given by the National Privacy Commission.
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Other book-giving highlights include:
- Children in Tanay, Rizal receiving copies of Sino si Juan which were brought over by members of the University of the Philippines-Diliman National Institute of Geological Sciences as they did their fieldwork there.
- Aeta children, indigenous peoples in Zambales, also received their Christmas gifts of My Super Hands through the Tuloy ang Pasko sa Zambales (Christmas Continues in Zambales) project of our partners Para sa Sining and The Storytelling Project. Initially scheduled for December 2020, COVID-19 restrictions hampered their distribution, but with their tenacity, the children finally received their books in April 2021.
- We also gave copies of our children's rights books Karapat Dapat to fellow non-profits 2KK (Tulong sa Kapwa Kapatid Foundation), SOS Children's Villages, and Virlanie Foundation.
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With your support and generosity, the 1 Million Books for 1 Million Children Campaign has been able to donate nearly 400,000 books to date to children all over the Philippines! Our thanks, too, to our partners on the ground who help us physically distribute our books to communities that need them.
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NEW TITLES
The COVID-19 pandemic hit the Philippines in the first quarter of 2020. On March 15, the Philippine government declared a lockdown that would last three months. At this time, CANVAS continued to work on other projects, but was still trying to figure out how to continue its book distribution campaign. By August, the Campaign began distributing books again, implementing safety protocols at our office such as a skeletal work force, masking, distancing, and sanitizing.
Despite the hurdles 2020 threw at us, the Campaign was able to distribute a total of 35,289 books through its partner organizations and volunteers. This is about 10,000 more books compared to last year! The total number of books donated since the beginning of the Campaign is now at 385,289. We hope to breach the 500,000-mark in the next two years.
We were also able to publish four new books in 2020 as part of our Campaign. These include:
1) I Am the Storyteller that uses images and questions as writing prompts for children;
2) My Super Hands, a book that includes children in the COVID-19 discussion and maps out activities that they can still do despite the major life changes brought about by the pandemic;
3) Safe Space: A Kid's Guide to Data Privacy, an activity book that introduces the concept of personal data to children ages 6 to 12 and teaches them how to protect themselves when online; and
4) #YouThink: Fight Fake News, published in a zine format, that helps children (and even adults) spot and unpack false information and the many forms it takes such as misleading information, fake photos, and deep fakes.
We are so happy and proud to have these new titles to give away to children nationwide to help them tap into their creative sides or find their way in an increasingly digital/online world. We could not have done this without your generous support!
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COMMUNITIES REACHED
Our partnerships -- with small private groups, NGOs, local government units and agencies -- on the ground are truly instrumental to the campaign. They tune us into communities that could benefit from our books and often do the physical driving and trekking to reach them!
Just some of our highlights for 2020:
Our books reached children displaced by the Taal volcano eruption with the help of CANVAS' Ibaan Team, Artletics art collective, and Southern Tagalog Serve the People Corps, pre-pandemic. Sultan Esmael Elementary school in Cavite, where there is a population of urban muslim minorities, received copies of Karapat Dapat.
Post-lockdown, we also gave 1,000 copies each of Karapat Dapat -- our children's rights books -- and I Am the Storyteller to urban poor communities through the Office of the Vice President and Ako Bakwit, while partnering with the municipal government of Alcala, Cagayan made it possible for us to distribute 3,500 copies of I Am the Storyteller to 26 public schools in their area. All 19 Quezon City public libraries now also have a collection of hardbound CANVAS books for their visitors, proudly displayed on their shelves.
2021 PLANS
Our experience in 2020 has proven that the pandemic may have made book-giving more challenging, but in no way has it made it impossible. We are inspired and motivated to distribute at least 50,000 books this year to various communities in the Philippines! We hope we can rely on your continuing support!
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"The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which served as the inspiration for this book, was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989. In spite of being ratified by the Philippines a year later, the publishers see it as necessary to take a stand and educate Filipino children about their rights at a time where the very value of human rights is questioned. All the convention's 54 articles are re-written in child-friendly language. Selected passages directly address young readers and are beautifully illustrated by the country's best book illustrators. Readers find extra pages interleaved that can be coloured in or used as game boards. This book is the fruit of the collaboration between CANVAS, a non-profit organization that promotes children's literacy and runs the One Million Books for One Million Filipino Children campaign to donate books to disadvantaged communities, and 21 members of Ang INK, the Philippines' children's book illustrators organization. (Age: 6+)"
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The COVID-19 crisis has been changing life around the world as we know it. In March, the Philippine government placed the whole capital, Metro Manila, on lockdown in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus. As such, only essential services were allowed to operate. As we now enter July and rules are getting less stringent, more businesses and activities are allowed to resume, yet the threat of COVID is still present.
Despite the lockdown and various challenges, CANVAS is committed to children’s literacy and is happy to reveal and give you a peek at our newest children’s activity book: I am the Storyteller.
Developed in part with support from the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), I am the Storyteller seeks to introduce art literacy to young readers by challenging them to look closely and analyze various images created by contemporary Filipino artists. It asks children to focus on various elements such as color or facial expressions so they can dig deeper into the meaning or message of the images. Furthermore, it prompts children with questions to encourage them to imagine and write their own stories and poems.
We are excited to get these activity books into children’s hands and see what stories they are able to write, where their imagination takes them.
With the funds raised from your donations as well as from other partners, we have ordered 25,000 copies of this creative writing activity book which we hope to give away in the coming months.
Because of the quarantine rules in place, we and most of our partners will find it challenging to distribute the books ourselves. Fortunately, some local governments who have various outreach programs in place are very interested in helping us safely bring the books to children in their respective jurisdictions. We will keep you posted, and rest assured that we will find a way to get it done!
Your generous support allows us to keep doing projects such as these, and we are grateful! We hope you are keeping safe and healthy, wherever in the world you are!
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