TACLOBAN CITY, Feb. 3 (PNA) — The Tacloban City Division of the Department of Education (DepEd) received Monday 2,000 classroom chairs from the Project RecyClass, a nationwide recycling drive supported by the department.
Alex Tacderas of Mondelez Philippines, one of the prime movers of the project, said that the project is an organization of kids across the country whose main objective was to protect the environment. One of their very first project was to collect foils and transform them into chairs.
Mondelez is a business enterprise helping children look for a technology and come up with a plan to convert what they have collected into usable materials. Otherwise, foils would only clog the water ways.
Tacderas informed that initially, their group only thought of providing 2,000 chairs in Metro Manila but the foils they collected were overwhelming in number. The 11 million pieces of foils they collected were transformed into 10,000 chairs.
Tacderas said that with their output, they would be able to donate to almost 200 schools in the country.
Initially, Tacloban, being a highly urbanized city, was not included in the list of recipients but the members of the organization proposed to donate their output to victims of super typhoon Yolanda.
After Tacloban, the group will visit other schools in the country to distribute school chairs.
The durability of the chairs has been tested and certified by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
The chairs are more durable because they have fiber and are non-toxic, Tacderas added.
Meanwhile DepEd Undersecretary for external linkages Mario A. Deriquito thanked the Mondelez and the children behind the project for bringing to Tacloban their chair sharing project and for sharing the fruits of their efforts to the kids of Tacloban City.
Deriquito congratulated the school children of Tacloban for having new chairs and urged them to take good care of these.
He also urged them not to hesitate to help others who are also in need if they have the opportunity to do so.
Monday’s turnover was graced by DepEd regional director Luisita Bautista Yu, Tacloban City Schools Division Superintendent Gorgonio Diaz and CNN Hero of the Year awardee Efren Penaflorida.
The project RecyClass is also in collaboration with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources DENR, National Youth Commission, Girl Scouts of the Philippines, and the Sanguniang Kabataan. (PNA)