Education loan fund to benefit 50,000 Filipino families

 

Official photo_RFC & CARD partnership_Edited
From left to right: Mr. Washington SyCip of WS Family Foundation, Dr. Jaime Aristotle B. Alip, CARD MRI Founder and Managing Director, Mr. Roberto Guevara, RFC President and Mr. Domingo Guevara Jr., RFC Chairman signed a Memorandum of Agreement to support 50,000 families from the rural poor to provide basic education to their children. The Zero Dropout Program is a program of CARD MRI implemented in the country.

 

Motivated by their mutual desire to lift poor Filipino families out of poverty, and their belief that education is a critical intervention to achieve that, Radiowealth Finance Corporation, Inc. (RFC) has forged a partnership with Center for Agriculture and Rural Development, Inc. (CARD, Inc.) to help 50,000 poor Filipino families keep their children in school.

RFC provided financial assistance to CARD, Inc. to support its Zero Dropout Program, a loan program of CARD, Inc. for its clients with elementary school-age children by offering education loans for families in its specific areas of operations to enable their children to go to school.

“RFC is one with CARD MRI in bringing education to the hard to reach communities. We are with them and Mr. Washington SyCip in believing that when people are able to read and write, there are less chances that they will be poor,” said Domingo M. Guevara Jr., Chairman of RFC.

Dr. Jaime Aristotle B. Alip, the Founder and Managing Director of CARD MRI expressed his gratitude with the support of RFC in this effort. “CARD is steadfast in this endeavor and will bring this opportunity (for basic education) to the communities,” he concluded.

RFC, which provides accessible credit to the public, has decided to support this program as part of its 50th Anniversary Corporate Social Responsibility Program. Its partnership with CARD, Inc., the mother institution of CARD MRI, which has been serving underprivileged women in the Philippines since 1986 marks the sustainable realization of Zero Dropout Program’s bold vision of reducing dropout rates at the elementary level.

The Zero Dropout Program was first funded by Washington SyCip Family Foundation.  Mr. SyCip believed that with the 1,450 offices of CARD MRI strategically operating across the country, thousands of rural families who are poorer and with larger families whose children are unable to go to school because of lack of access to basic needs, cash and school supplies will be reached by the program.

The Zero Dropout Program was conceptualized after the success of an education loan program of CARD, Inc. in the provinces of Masbate and Mindoro. This was then rolled out in 2011 to all offices of CARD MRI. Currently, the Kazarian Foundation in US and WS Family Foundation in Philippines are supporting this effort. As of March 2014, the Zero Dropout Program has already assisted 46,360 poor rural children since it began in June 2011.