Our work began in late 2021, during a time when elementary schools in the Philippines were still severely affected by the pandemic. Recognizing the plight of young students who were unable to attend school or access online classes, we aimed to make a lasting impact by bringing education directly to their homes. For the first time, hundreds of students and their parents read together at home. Every week, students and their parents would report back to their schools to get a new set of books to read at home.

 

When schools reopened, we realized that our Filipino Leveled Books were the missing resources in our public school classrooms. The pandemic revealed the sad reality of the state of our young students’ reading skills, confirmed by the 2018 and 2022 PISA results, which ranked the Philippines among the eight lowest in reading scores out of 80 countries.

 

We understood that our job had just begun and that the best way to continue and reach more students was to officially become a foundation. Give Me a Book Foundation for Filipino Leveled Books was founded in July 2023.