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Raquel Samili lives most of her life in barangay Mambaling, Cebu City.
Samili, 32, has witnessed poverty and it affected families and brought chaos in the community.
But poverty did not stop her from pursuing her dreams to become a teacher.
Sixty schoolchildren, aged three to four under her tutelage, gave her a sense of fulfillment and the feeling of being able to make a difference in their lives after every session in home-based day care center.
The home-based day care project is under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
?When families became part of the 4Ps, there was a dramatic increase in the number of students enrolled in day care centers and the excess enrollees were brought to the home-based day care centers. Attitude and participation of parents especially mothers has also improved,? said Samili.
?Now parents insist on letting their kids attend the home-based day care session since their children cannot be accommodated anymore at the local day care centers, unlike before where the teachers were the ones convincing the parents to allow their children to attend the day care,? she said.
She added enrollment in day-care centers doubled this year with at least 32 students per session.
Last year, excess enrollees was never a problem for Samili because she had a few pupils.
Under the guidelines, the home-based daycare center is supposed to accommodate only 15 pupils every session.
The increase was attributed to the conditions stipulated under the 4Ps program to let the children of program beneficiaries attend day care or pre-school classes.
?I believe every parent wants their children to go to school but there is a fear in them of not being able to provide their basic school needs, such as crayons and paper,? Samili said.
?With 4Ps, mothers are very confident in letting their children attend home-based day-care program because they were able to provide for their children?s needs,? she said.
The 4Ps is a poverty reduction approach of the national government that provides cash grants to extremely poor households to improve their health, nutrition and education particularly of children 14 yers old and below.
