The students live in at the school from Monday through Friday and the majority go home on the weekends.  Everything from school books and supplies to bedding, meals, treatment of medical problems and transportation to and from the school are provided for free.

    The teaching staff live at the school with the students and there is at least one teacher in an adjoining room in each of the sleeping quarters.  The students are taught to clean their own rooms; wash their own clothes; and cook, prepare, and clean up after their own meals.  Basically, they are being prepared for life.

    The students all also work on the farm where a variety of fruits and vegetables are grown.  The island of Camiguin is almost entirely devoted to the raising of coconuts, on which the majority of tenant farmers can barely subsist.  And most of the vegetables sold in the markets on Camiguin are brought from other islands.  So Family to Family hopes to encourage more vegetable farming, which can be done under the coconut trees.  The students learn all aspects of farming from starting seedlings to the harvesting.

    The student population varies from one hundred to one hundred fifty students.  There are ten teaching staff and one nurse to handle the medical clinic who also teaches health.  The new students are taught the routines by older students and there are corporals who supervise various activities such as food preparation and cleaning.  And several sergeants supervise the corporals.  The clinic nurse teaches designated medical officers from each sleeping quarter to recognize and report minor illnesses.  These medical officers also learn how to do simple wound dressings, and help with physical therapy for some of the handicapped students.  The school tries to encourage an atmosphere of teaching and passing it on in all levels and areas.

    There are twenty deaf students and they have separate academic classes given in sign language, but they are integrated with the rest of the students for all other activities.   Three of the teaching staff have studied sign language, but almost all of the teachers and a number of the hearing students have also picked up  enough sign language to be able to communicate with the deaf students.

    There are also about a half dozen youngsters with orthopedic handicaps, such as TB damage to the spine and post polio paralysis, or cerebral palsy.  These students are all sent for evaluation by an orthopedic specialist and provided with surgery, medication, braces, crutches, and physical therapy as needed.

    All the students come from situations of serious poverty and over half of them are missing one or both parents.  It is not unusual for the school to have sibling groups of three to five children.  Although the minimum age is supposed to be nine years, exceptions are made to include younger children who are part of a sibling group or for children who are coming from very difficult situations, such as extreme poverty.    There is no upper age limit and the school has had a number of students who were just starting Grade One in their late teens.

    Initially, the school only accepted students from the island of Camiguin.  And there are still more drop-outs on the island.  But not every young drop-out is interested and willing to go back to school, especially if they have been out of school a long time.  In this they are quite similar to the “street children” seen in major cities.  They don’t want to give up their life of freedom to roam.  Tom and Diane call them “jungle children” because they just roam around all day looking for fruits or playing and avoiding any responsibilities.  So the school now accepts students from the mainland of Mindanao as well.

    After graduation, Family to Family provides assistance to many of the students who wish to go on to high school.

Photos of Family to Family Mapa School and Farm