Teacher Nenita Riveral has taught pre-schoolers in the village of Ermita, Cebu City, for 13 years. Until recently, the daycare center she works at had no permanent address.
A huge fire hit a portion of the barangay in 2013, leaving thousands of people homeless. Unfortunately, the blaze also claimed Riveral’s nursery. Following a massive exodus of residents after the incident, the city government reclaimed the site and turned it into a parking lot, striking out chances of ever rebuilding the school.
Teacher Nenita Riveral shows her students at the Barangay Ermita Daycare Center in Cebu City a photo of a “girl.”
Riveral and her fellow teachers had to “borrow” classrooms from other daycare centers in the village for a while. Between 2015 and 2019, they had to rent small spaces from various landlords and moved from place to place whenever their leases expired.
Fast forward to 2022, Riveral and her young learners now have somewhere they can truly call their own. AboitizPower subsidiary Cebu Private Power Corporation (CPPC) and the Aboitiz Foundation recently donated a new daycare center to the village, a timely intervention after the two-year break from face-to-face classes.
“We’re grateful that we now have our classrooms since we only used to rent a place back then. We also no longer need to move whenever our lease expires, allowing the barangay to save on expenses. Thank you, CPPC, for helping us,” Riveral said in Cebuano.
Construction of the facility began in August and ended the second week of September. The daycare center has two classrooms, which can each hold 15 learners. There are currently 60 students enrolled there, comprising children from sitios Warwick Barracks and Kawit, two of five sitios in the barangay. The daycare center is also equipped with an air conditioner, making it more conducive to learning.
“We only requested a simple structure that we can use temporarily, but CPPC gave us more than we expected,” said Brgy. Ermita Chairman Mark Miral.
CPPC Operations Manager Bernie Buanghug said the company hopes the daycare center will become a safe place where pre-schoolers in the community can learn and grow.
“Through these projects, we hope to continue uplifting the lives of the communities we serve. This is our contribution to the AboitizPower purpose of transforming energy for a better world,” he added.
The company believes in the importance of education among the youth and has long been at the forefront of promoting its development in Ermita. In 2018, CPPC donated tech-vocational equipment to Don Carlos A. Gothong Memorial National High School to help students put their skills to use.
CPPC operates and manages an oil-fired power plant located in the heart of Cebu City, embedded within the franchise area of Visayan Electric Company, and has the unique capability to deliver power directly to the distribution utility’s circuits and its customers.
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