Children from all walks of life are full of dreams and aspirations. Most of them want to be teachers, engineers, doctors, nurses, social workers, firefighters and president of the their country or even like a Pantawid Pamilya beneficiary Joshua Oliveros of Antique, now a millionaire after winning The Voice Kid recently.

Antiquenoes share almost the same dreams like Anedaine Geamal, 13, of Tobias Fornier, Antique who has been dreaming also to be an exemplary teacher. Teaching as her first love, Anedaine’s inspiration in adding ‘changes’ to the lives of Indigenous Peoples (IPs), is making her more determined.

To materialize her dream, Anedaine has been rendering volunteer work as a day care teacher in an IP community located within their village in Brgy. Igdalaguit. Around 78 IP families are now living with the mainstream of which, 20 of their children are regularly attending their special class every Saturday from 1 to 2 p.m.

Since the day care center is just a walking distance from home, Anedaine is diligently attending her class but in case of schedule conflict due to school activities, her eldest sisters are taking over her assignment to these little children aged three to five-year-old.

According to her, every time she is in front of these little children, she gets ‘paid-off’ seeing them attentively listening to her every time she does a storytelling session. Apart from storytelling, Anedaine also teaching them dancing, singing, writing and drawing.

“Teaching these IP children is an opportunity for me because this is already my stepping stone in reaching my goal to finish college and become a teacher. Aside from this, I want also to advocate to these children the value of education despite of poverty and cultural differences,” she said.

On top of this, Anedaine is also rendering ‘peer tutorial’ to her low learner classmates whom some of them are also IPs. She teaches them particularly on reading and Math and English subjects. Being the top list on her class since pre-school up to the present has gained trust and confidence to her teachers that she could help her classmates into this way.

Their school has been implementing ‘remedial classes’ every school day from 1:00 to 1:30 p.m. tapping high-performing students to teach and review those low-performing classmates to master their academic subjects. Anedaine helps her classmates without any compensation or expecting anything in return.

“I am happy teaching them especially if they could already know how to read or solve any Mathematical problems. This makes me proud of,” she said.

Born on September 12, 2004, Anedaine’s zodiac sign is a Virgo, astrologically known as the ‘sign of service’. Virgo people are most selfless and their deep sense of the humane leads them to caregiving like no other, while their methodical approach to life ensures that nothing is missed.

Just like Anedaine’s personality, she makes sure that while she is soaring high, nothing from the poor children or her classmates are left behind.

Now that she is graduating from elementary, she is closer to her ambition because of her perseverance to put her vision into a reality.

Anedaine said she is thankful that Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program has helped her and two other eldest sisters for their education and health. She added since their family is covered by the program almost four years already, the cash grants they have been receiving helped them a lot in their school and health needs.

“This is also one of the reasons why I want to share my knowledge and talent to my fellow children. It’s just like a simple way of paying forward all the blessings that God gave to us,” she said.

Apart from being excellent in school, both in academics and curricular activities, Anedaine said her volunteer is also part of her commitment in rendering community service especially that she was elected as the little mayor of 4Ps organization under the leadership of their present mayor.//(MGC)