Ateneo de Naga Alumna is NOVA 2010 Awardee

Naga City (Updated May 28, 2011) – A Bicolana alumna of Ateneo de Naga University, deeply involved in literacy outreach program for native Aeta minorities,  is one of the recipients of the National Outstanding Volunteer Award (NOVA) for Youth Category for 2010.

Ms. Ira Sheena Howard, received the award from President Benigno C. Aquino III in a ceremony held at the Manila Hotel yesterday, May 24. The president, apparently eager to underscore the importance of volunteerism had worked with the organizers to find a slot in his tight schedule to ensure that he personally confer the awards.

Howard, a BS Secondary Education (Major in English) graduate of the Ateneo de Naga University, is no stranger to achievement awards.

In 2008, she was one of the Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines awardees.

She was the Class Valedictorian of her class, graduating Cum Laude, and recipient of the St. Ignatius of Loyola General Excellence Gold Medallion Award, Achievement Award, Leadership Award and Bro. Sergio Adriatico Fifth Pillar Gold Medallion Service Award.

NOVA is an annual search of the Philippine National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency for outstanding volunteers who rendered community service through the spirit of volunteerism.

Philippine National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency (PNVSCA) is a government agency, under the administrative supervision of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), which is responsible for promoting and coordinating volunteer programs and services in the country.

The major community involvement that clinched for Howard the NOVA award was her community outreach program entitled “Hasik Karunungan: Adult Aetas Literacy Program,” which started in 2007 and provided reading and writing instructions to adult marginalized Aeta minorities. Outreach activities were done every Sunday at a small school in Cura, Pili, Camarines Sur, near the natives’ abode at the foot of Mount Isarog.

“Since I’m an education major, I want to do an outreach activity related to my field but I don’t want to teach kids. I want to teach a different group of people,” Howard said.

In the illiterate adult Aetas who speak only in their native dialect, Howard found her ultimate challenge as a young educator.

Together with other education major students of the University, Howard teamed up with the Dominican sisters in Naga City, headed by Sr. Cleopatra Moreno, an educator who also took her Master’s degree in the same University. Sr. Cleopatra encouraged Howard’s group to conduct an outreach in the said location and pattern their activities to what the sisters had been doing.

The ambitious goal was to break the chain of illiterate adult Aetas passing on their illiteracy to their children.

At present, the outreach program is on hold after it ran into funding difficulties.

Howard’s team, however, is on continuous negotiations with prospective sponsors, like the ABS-CBN Foundation, to revive the program and make it self-sustaining.