The Department of Education (DepEd), along with government and private organizations, honored our education frontline heroes during the recently-concluded National Teachers’ Month (NTM). Now on its 13th year, NTM has become more relevant as the nation continues to battle COVID-19. Despite the challenges, teachers continue to ensure they pursue teaching during the community quarantine.
In her message at the nationwide virtual NTM celebration last October 5, Education Secretary Leonor Briones emphasized the importance of teachers in nation-building amid these challenging times. “Your resilience and innovativeness are crucial factors in ensuring that we will continue to perform our mandate of delivering quality education for our children,” she said.
As a long-time partner of DepEd, UnionBank’s thrift bank subsidiary City Savings Bank, Inc. (CitySavings) has initiatives that focus on appreciating and raising teacher quality.
“Though these past two years have not been easy, City Savings Bank will always be here to help the education community in our own way as you serve and inspire our future generations. Maraming salamat po sa inyong sakripisyo,” said CitySavings President and CEO Lorenzo Ocampo.
The Bank showed its appreciation for teachers through a bank-wide NTM event where branches gave tokens of gratitude to clients, and the #MyTeacherMyFrontlineHero social media campaign featuring inspiring stories during this time of distance learning and about the teaching profession. It sponsored major prizes including e-gift vouchers, teaching tools, and brand new motorcycle units that were raffled off during the virtual NTM celebration.
CitySavings also revved up its Motor Moto program that offers education personnel 0% installment for pre-loved motorcycles.
To support DepEd’s Basic Education – Learning Continuity Plan (BE-LCP), the Bank donated sanitation essentials, handwashing facilities, printing materials, and learning equipment. This initiative, under DepEd’s Brigada Eskwela program, benefited more than 340 schools and division offices across the country.
To complement this, CitySavings gave access to many teacher training opportunities to upskill educators as the new academic year begins. The virtual webinars and workshops include: Project Agile (Managing Virtual Classes), Project Peraparasyon (Practical Wealth Management), Project Pink (Breast Cancer Awareness), Project #BetterMe (Mental Health Awareness), Disaster Risk Reduction 101 in partnership with the Aboitiz Foundation, and Education 4.0: Future Proofing Institutions live casts with Thames International School. These sessions have reached over 2,200 participants composed of teaching and non-teaching personnel, disaster risk reduction coordinators, school administrators, and education leaders.
CitySavings hopes that these initiatives will continue to inspire and help our educators as they go beyond their call of duty and embody this year’s NTM themes of “I Teach for a Better Future” and “Gurong Filipino: Katuwang sa Hamon, Kasama sa Pagbangon”.
