A Thank you Letter

HELPING CHILDREN DEVELOP REGISTERED CHARITY NUMBER: 1123801 Dear Metage Capital Ltd. and Donors to SIKAT, 28th June 2017 On behalf of SIKAT- Helping Children Develop, I would like to thank you very much for your generous donation of £500, plus the donations of your staff to the JustGiving page, giving a total of £1,217. We are absolutely delighted and enormously grateful for your support! Your donation will make a big difference to our ability to help the needs of the children and young adults that attend the FKM Calingag High School. We are thrilled that your donation is making it possible for us to continue our project to improve their facilities after the Typhoon hit in 2015. Since then, they have been using temporary Nipa Huts and we have been working to raise money to build a new structure for their assembly hall, providing a proper and safe building for the students and teachers and making their studying at school far more comfortable. Our special THANK YOU goes to our amazing running duo Maria G. Mendes and Lissette who tackled the Colour Run UK at Wembley on 11th June 2017. And we would also like to express our gratitude to Lucia Gil, who has worked tirelessly to promote our charity and who connected us with Maria and Lissette. We have received a welcome boost from their wonderful, successful and very exciting fundraising efforts. I would like to take this chance to tell you a bit more about SIKAT so that you can see how even the smallest bit of help is incredibly valuable to the people we help. About SIKAT- Helping Children Develop We are a grassroots charity based in Islington, UK and we work closely with the children, young adults, and teachers in the Village of Calingag, Oriental Mindoro. This is a province in the Philippines, about 140 kilometers southwest of Manila. Before the FKM High School was opened in Calingag, the children had to walk for miles in order to get to their closest school. Now that they have a school in their village, SIKAT’s objective is to improve their access to good quality facilities in order to give them the best education they need. This allows the children to build better lives for themselves by giving them a chance to pursue careers, which eventually will allow them to help their own family and community for generations to come. SIKAT depends entirely on the efforts of its trustees and volunteers and has no permanent volunteers or paid staff. General Information about Calingag Calingag is an impoverished community where farming is the primary source of livelihood. However, most of the farmers do not own their own lands and they have to rely on seasonal opportunities to earn their living. Some are engaged in vegetable gardening, livestock raising and some have small businesses. Few people from the community are employed. In 2005, 251A NEW NORTH ROAD, LONDON N1 7AT TEL 020 7704 8502 • E-MAIL INFO@SIKAT.ORG• WEB [WWW.SIKAT.ORG] Calingag had a total population of 1,856 and many leave the community to seek greener pastures and better opportunities for employment. There are only three educational facilities in Calingag. First, there is a day care center that caters to the needs of children aged 4-5 years. Second, there is a Pre-School, which is part of the Elementary School. And last, there is the Secondary School, which is now in its twelfth year. Other than these three, there are no other facilities, such as sports centers, official town libraries or after school clubs, although SIKAT has proudly been collecting and shipping books to them from the UK so that they can operate a makeshift library from an old warehouse building. SIKAT is particularly concerned to help those families whose access to secondary and college education has been cut off by decades due to a lack of funding or opportunity. In the village, we work closely with the children and their families to decide how best to improve their learning opportunities, both at school and in their wider community. SIKAT wants to help the children achieve their hopes and dreams, and help their families escape poverty so that in time the whole community can have a better quality of life. Here are a few snapshots of the day! 251A NEW NORTH ROAD, LONDON N1 7AT TEL 020 7704 8502 • E-MAIL INFO@SIKAT.ORG• WEB [WWW.SIKAT.ORG] 251A NEW NORTH ROAD, LONDON N1 7AT TEL 020 7704 8502 • E-MAIL INFO@SIKAT.ORG• WEB [WWW.SIKAT.ORG] About the Calingag High School Project: The original Makeshift building was built in 2005-2006 and was used as an assembly hall for many years. Unfortunately, it was totally ruined by Typhoon Nona, which hit the north of the Philippines in 2015. For this reason, if there are any teacher’s meetings, PTA meetings or any other school activity meetings, they have to use or share the student classrooms, which is inconvenient for everyone. For school assemblies and the graduation ceremony, they have had to use the outside areas of the school grounds. An Assembly Hall is desperately and urgently needed by the school, even a very simple structure, which would keep everyone safe from the elements. A Thank you from a Student Hi, Ma’am/Sir… I am John Carlo Sapungan, son of Mr. Nicolas and Mrs. Helen Sapungan. I am an alumnus of our beloved school, FKM High School in Calingag, Pinamalayan. I just want to say thank you for all you’ve done for us especially for providing us a school where we can study and have knowledge in order for us to enroll in college and conquer our dreams. Without you all, maybe I am not in college today. I am now already 17 years old, First Year College studying at the Polytechnic University of Philippines-Sta. Mesa, Manila taking Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. I hope our school will continuously grow with excellence. This may be the beginning of our community’s innovation. More Power! And God Bless us all. Below are some photos to give you an idea of the school grounds and the students, with some explanations underneath. ‘Nutrition Day’ at the school: 251A NEW NORTH ROAD, LONDON N1 7AT TEL 020 7704 8502 • E-MAIL INFO@SIKAT.ORG• WEB [WWW.SIKAT.ORG] Assemblies and class performances: The original structure, built in 2005, previously used The damage caused by the Typhoon in 2015: as an Assembly Hall: 251A NEW NORTH ROAD, LONDON N1 7AT TEL 020 7704 8502 • E-MAIL INFO@SIKAT.ORG• WEB [WWW.SIKAT.ORG] The damage was done to the school’s canteen: Since 2015, the school has been using these temporary Nipa huts, which do not give the staff and children shelter from the elements: 251A NEW NORTH ROAD, LONDON N1 7AT TEL 020 7704 8502 • E-MAIL INFO@SIKAT.ORG• WEB [WWW.SIKAT.ORG] These are the basic classroom buildings where the children have their lessons: We are aiming raise money in order to transform the current Nipa Huts being used into this proper Assembly Hall illustrated below: Once again, we extend our greatest thanks to you and everyone who donated to Graca and Lisette. I hope we have shared with you how significant your donation will be to everyone we help. Linda Manlises Chair/Trustee of SIKAT 251A NEW NORTH ROAD, LONDON N1 7AT TEL 020 7704 8502 • E-MAIL INFO@SIKAT.ORG• WEB [WWW.SIKAT.ORG]