- Advocacy continues after last year’s Ball successfully reopened the Bantay Bata Children’s Village
- ABS-CBN Ball 2019 to grant scholarships to underprivileged children
- 65 years of being in the service of the Filipino
For ABS-CBN, celebrating 65 years of being in the service of the Filipino means remaining committed to help those in need.
That is why when it brings back the ABS-CBN Ball on September 14 at Shangri-La The Fort, it will continue what it started last year – to bring hope to underprivileged children, this time through the Bantay Bata 163 Bantay Edukasyon program.
The coming ball will give the stars and other attendees the chance to provide children in need the tool to reach their dreams, through scholarships.
With the program, all of the children’s basic needs to help them have a normal education, from complete tuition assistance, to meal and transportation allowances, school supplies, and other fees, will be covered.
Under the program, the children and their families receive counseling and are provided self-development sessions, as well as training on basic life skills through social work intervention.
This includes values formation and parenting sessions, the Resiliency Program, which helps scholars determine their strengths and weaknesses; music, arts, and sports programs to teach them the value of discipline in their lives; and more recently, even a digital workshop to help expand the children’s choices of possible careers.
Bantay Bata 163 implemented the Bantay Edukasyon program in 1998 to serve as an aftercare service for rescued children.
It has since provided 6,400 scholarships all over the country since it started.
This year’s affair essentially continues what it started last year, which helped successfully re-open the Bantay Bata Children’s Village, and gave a group of underprivileged children a new home.
The Ball will also honor ABS-CBN Foundation and Bantay Bata 163 founder Gina Lopez.
Under Lopez, Bantay Bata 163 rescued thousands of children from physical and sexual abuse and eventually provided what she considers her greatest achievement for it, the Children’s Village in Norzagaray, Bulacan.
The Village is now more than a shelter and rehabilitation area for children as it has become a benchmark for childcare excellence.
The 2018 ABS-CBN Ball gathered a total of P5 million, which was used for the construction and rehabilitation of the structures of the village, CCTV training for social workers, the installation of a call and paging system, a Library, and a multimedia room.
Since the Bantay Bata Children’s Village opened its doors last December 2018, it has already served 46 children.
Five of them have already reunited with their families while 41 are still in the village.
For more updates and to catch the ABS-CBN Ball’s red carpet airing, visit www.abscbnball.com.
