MANILA, Philippines - Donations for school chairs or desks can now be done at the click of a desktop mouse or a touchscreen tablet or smartphone.
Four years after it ended in 2007 and nine years after it began in 2002, a school chairs donation project in honor of former President and global democracy icon Cory Aquino has been revived — albeit with a twist in the digital age.
The corporate-led Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), a non-profit organization for social development, is launching a new online giving facility, iGiveBackNow, in partnership with UnionBank, starting off with the President Corazon C. Aquino school desk project as the primary beneficiary.
After providing desks and chairs to various schools — from Iloilo to Basilan and Maguindanao — for more than five years, the project would now be targeting at least 486,303 seats for around 2,523 public elementary and high schools nationwide, mostly in the poor provinces of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Kicking off at Dusit Thani, Makati City last August 23, the launch of iGiveBackNow aims to raise funds in order to implement more poverty reduction projects.
In a statement, PBSP said iGiveBackNow (www.igivebacknow.pbsp.org.ph) would be an easier, more secure, and faster web-based platform for individual or corporate giving, where every person or company would have the opportunity to help uplift the lives of millions of Filipinos.
Among those who supported the project were individual philanthropists as well as major businesses and foundations like PLDT, PHINMA Group/PHINMA Foundation, Citibank, Ayala Foundation, SGV & Co./SGV Foundation, and the Washington SyCip Foundation.
For more inquiries, contact PBSP communications officers Amy Melissa Malaluan and Grace Muncada at 527-7741 to 48 local 313, telefax 527-3741, or e-mail abmalaluan@pbsp.org.ph, amy.pbsp@gmail.comor grace.pbsp@gmail.com.