Leading the change

(Rina, in pink, with students in Languyan, Tawi-Tawi. Photo courtesy KCFI.)

MANY of Rina Lopez-Bautista’s classmates in high school (Assumption College) and college (De La Salle University) will probably remember how good she was as a guard forward playing in their varsity basketball team. “I was just playing basketball,” she giggles, “and just having fun with my friends.”

She then turns serious: “But I’ve always wanted to do something to help the less fortunate.” So in 1999, while working at the Lopez Group’s SkyCable, Rina, along with Carlo Katigbak, spearheaded the creation of Knowledge Channel (Channel 49), the country’s first and only curriculum-based TV channel, on SkyCable. (Click Something Like Life.)

Another inspiring story

BULLIED by teen gang members as a child, Efren Penaflorida and his team of youth volunteers help kids move away from a life of violence and bullying through education.

"For the past 12 years, Peñaflorida and his team of teen volunteers have taught basic reading and writing to children living on the streets. Their main tool: A pushcart classroom.

Stocked with books, pens, tables and chairs, his Dynamic Teen Company recreates a school setting in unconventional locations such as the cemetery and municipal trash dump." (This is his story.)

Pls. vote for Efren to help him win CNN Hero of the Year award.