News Release

LDS Charities Donates Bags and School Supplies to Marawi Displaced Learners in CDO City

On 26 September 2017, more than 300 displaced learners from Marawi City currently attending classes in South City Central School in barangay Nazareth, Cagayan de Oro City, received bags with school supplies from LDS Charities, the humanitarian arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The turn-over ceremony, held in the covered court of South City Central School earlier this morning, was witnessed by parents, teachers, and students.                     

                 

Mr. Celso Pagulon, School Principal of South City Central School, received the donation from Mr. Edwin Sacay, Stake President of the Cagayan de Oro Philippines Stake (Diocese) of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mr. Sacay was assisted by Paul Michael Porpor, 1st Counselor in the Stake Presidency, and Romelo Concepcion, Counselor in the Philippines Cagayan de Oro Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

              

As of June 2017, data from the Department of Education show that there are at least 15,115 students from Marawi City who are now displaced and who have transferred to schools in 93 cities and municipalities nationwide. In South City Central School, the number of displaced learners reached an all-time high of 340 students last August. According to Mr. Ronnie Uraura, teacher in-charge of the Marawi displaced learners in South City Central School, these students live in dire conditions, cramped with their immediate families and 3 or more other families in tiny apartments or rented homes. Most of them are slowly adjusting to their temporary environment despite the communication challenge as most of them only speak Tagalog and English and can hardly speak and understand the local Visayan dialect. But life must go on for all of them, and so they are making the best of what they have right now, this according to one mother who was present during the turnover.

                         
           

Sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, LDS Charities is an application of the admonition of Jesus Christ to help others in need. Jesus Christ taught His followers to give meat to the hungry and drink to those who thirst. His is a gospel that includes taking in the stranger, loving neighbors as self, and visiting those who are sick or imprisoned. He taught that we are to love and care for each other, visit the fatherless and widows in their afflictions, and lift up those whose hands hang down and whose knees are feeble. 

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