“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Chinese Proverb

This popular quote expresses our belief in both the importance of education as well as the need for lessons to be practical and relevant. Hence, we ensure that our brand of education responds to the needs of individuals and their community.

          OB Christian Community School (OBCCS), a small school in Rodriguez, Rizal, takes part in community development by providing an enterprise-focused education. Even as a small school, OBCCS has endeavored in the last 33 years to have permanent impact on lives of students through its unique, engaging, and practical program.

          According to Angelita Resurreccion , the school’s founder, the goal of the school is to reach out to underprivileged children, provide a contextualized and relevant education program, and make Christ known to people through its services .

      “Development must be holistic – the family, school, church, and the physical community must work together to develop a better society,” teacher Anji added. “Through OBCCS, we can develop a Christian enterprising society in this community,” she said.

        Students are taught to be active participants in community development. The school adopts a curriculum that focuses on teaching Biblical values and entrepreneurship, to complement the core curriculum required by the Department of Education (DepEd). The school is known for its BEST (Building Enterprising Society Today) curriculum, an enterprise education approach which was a product of an action research together with the Small Enterprises Research and Development Foundation. Through SERDEF, the school produced learning materials and approaches designed to address the needs of students from urban-poor communities within the context of a basic education program. The idea is to produce young people who know how to learn and excel in any field – whether academics, workplace or enterprise.

          This promising school conquered many challenges in the last five years, such as accreditation, infrastructure, management, and financial support. Responses to those challenges resulted in the school’s relocation from Old Balara in Quezon City to Amityville in San Jose, Rodriguez, Rizal The school has had to start from scratch in the new location. Teachers now need to travel from Quezon City to Rizal in order to teach around 30 students, most of whom are in the Alternative Learning System (ALS) program. OBCCS is currently praying for provisions towards the construction of a DepEd compliant facility. Once fully DepEd-recognized, the school can concentrate on teaching and contextualizing its curriculum to the reality in Rodriguez .

          In conquering the challenges of relocation, the school was blessed with miraculous events since 2015. It obtained accreditation from the Philippine Council for NGO Certification (PCNC) attesting to the worthiness of our cause to deserve support from the public, as well as obtaining permit extensions from the DepEd NCR. God provided us with generous donors, foremost of which were Rogan Builders, Getz Pharma Corporation, HLSF Construction, Rapha Health and Passion for Perfection. We found an ideal property in Rodriguez, located beside Mt Zion church. We finished building our temporary facility in June, with the help of many friends from different communities who believe in our advocacy. We have committed and dedicated Christians working in the Faculty, led by a functioning Board of Trustees. We thank our numerous individual supporters and donors who made all these possible. Only the teachers are paid at the school, everyone else works on a voluntary basis. We all draw our motivation from God, whose miracles confirmed that the transplanting of our school to Rodriguez was according to His will.

          OBCCS continues to live by God’s grace through faithful partnerships with the community, the local church, our teachers, students’ parents, our private sector donors, and friends . We thank the members of Old Balara Christian Community, particularly those who set up the school in order to do unto others what other Christians did to help them follow the way of Jesus. Together, we are fulfilling the vision of building a functioning Christian community that helps through education. It is our dream to serve a thousand students every year in this community, training them in academics (DepEd) and practical life skills (TESDA and Agri-business courses) for building sustainable and resilient families and communities. We have a long way to go as of now.

You can help us educate more young people, particularly those who find going to (and remaining in ) school difficult. Pray for us, promote us to those who can help, volunteer your services, or else donate to supporting our cause.