Brendan's Worlds

An educational public service helping 'at risk' young learners to succeed in the Philippines

We're pleased to be doing our bit to promote mental fitness and literacy in a nation who's young people deserve to better their opportunities in life. They can get a step up with Study Skills, by learning how to learn at Study Fresh.

Why Study Fresh? It's a new approach to providing educational
opportunities and seeks to constantly develop and respond to positive outcomes and the needs of the communities where we teach.

Traditionally these study skills and life-skillls are not taught and even in the western world many young people have never 'learned how to learn' or operate their mind effectively. Study fresh aims to be a self sustaining training organization and is currently fund raising to establish out first purpose built training space which we will call 'Fresh Aralan Space'. Aralan is a word in the Philippines to mean "a place to study or to learn".

Outreach Education

We teach 7 free outreach classes each week. Classes go for 1 hour and the venues for the classes are Internet cafes located within Makati and Mandaluyong. Our teachers...

2 of the classes are taught weekends and the other 5 classes are after school 4pm-5pm week days.

We rent out privately owned Internet Cafes and this costs between $40-50 per hour for the space to teach 10+ students.

The average expenditure per child is $5.00 per class and that includes class handouts and writing pads and pencils.

Project Fresh Space

We are working towards renting our own space which will be open 11am to 8pm 6 days a week. We need to raise a further $35,00 USD to make rental payments and fit it out to our requirements.

Help us with our early intervention programs and to teach these important study skills to Filipino young people.

Sharing the knowledge

Young people can train to become accredited Study Fresh tutors and teach and earn within their own communities.

Fresh ideas, fresh skills, fresh new horizons, and fresh opportunities.

While volunteering in the Philippines I'd started informally working with some young people and teachers, teaching them mind mapping and goal mapping.

As you can imagine I' noticed that both these tools seem to have a strong 'pull' effect and I became interested enough to want explore and document how these tools can encourage young people in poorer nations to want to learn, stay or go back to school.

Study Fresh is currently self-funded and we can't meet the demand. Students everywhere are referring friends and parents are pleased their children are learning new skills in a fun and safe environment.



Policymakers in most developing countries are concerned about high dropout rates and poor student learning in primary and secondary education.

The Philippines has a lack of resources and poor infrastructure and with low literacy rates the opportunity exists to enhance learning through many of these techniques we may be able to make a real difference.
Challenges for Young People

Access to and quality of basic services in education and health are major challenges for children in the Philippines. In Metro Manila, overcrowded schools result in teachers holding classes in two or three shifts a day. In contrast, rural schools have fewer students but suffer from a lack of teachers. An alarming number of very young children in the Philippines have iron deficiency anemia. Among older children, this is compounded by soil-transmitted parasitic worms that cause malnutrition and diseases – a result of poor sanitation and hygiene. In Mindanao, children and their families are vulnerable to the effects of sporadic armed conflict between various armed groups and the Philippine military.
Numbers at a Glance

* The population of the Philippines is almost 91 million.
* 1 in 3 children under the age of 5 are underweight; among school children, 1 in 5 children are underweight.
* Only 1 in 5 children, ages 3-5, have access to day care or preschool services.
* On average, only 43 percent of the required English, Science and Math competencies are mastered by Filipino pupils.
*
The infant mortality rate is 29 per 1,000 births.

Fresh Hope

Using technology, informal teaching settings and following an early intervention model we target poor 'at risk' students, Philippines. Keen to formalize this training we created Study Fresh and we hope you will support our project by donating and so enable us to effect real change.

Imagination and innovation through the mind of a child can produce a ripple effect for future opportunities for the nation. Philippinos are renound for their tenacity and ability to adapt and....

Developing effective study skills, improving reading comprehension, discovering their own personal study style, learning to manage their time more efficiently and learning the best way to prepare for exams are just a few of the topics covered in Study Fresh Classes.