To catch the Ayala Foundation’s 6.15 shuttle, we get up at 5.30 a.m. Drinking black coffee on the 34th floor, we watch the sun being overcome by drizzle before ascending further up by the back staircase to the helipad from where we will be taken to the Youth Leadership Congress in Taka, a 25 minute helicopter ride away. As well as two dashing pilots, we share the helicopter with Bill Luz, Vice President of the Foundation and Fernando Zobel de Ayala, President of the Ayala Corporation.
Because of a wall of fog, the helicopter wheels around and we land in a school playground where we find a presidential line of cars waiting to pick us up. The congress is attended by the CEOs of all the Ayala Group’s companies, including Ayala Land, Bank of the Philippines Islands, Globe Telecom and Manila Water Company; these companies have a combined net income of US$252.6 million USD. What is most revealing is how well these business leaders seem to know all of the young people attending. This is because the final decisions on who participates are based on interviews conducted by the CEOs, who say that these are one of the highlights of their year; that it is so refreshing to deal with curious and fresh minds.
While we watch the opening ceremony and the ensuing question and answer session, it becomes apparent to us how valuable and inspiring it is for these young people to be listened to by the country’s top business men and women; impressions have clearly been made on both sides.
Ayala works to address poverty in the Philippines in all its forms and the staff at the Foundation have already been really helpful to us in setting up meetings with their partners for our fieldtrip. We will be seeing 5 of their projects in the next two weeks and today we simply want to get an overview of their work and the social issues that are significant in this country.
We are going to be seeing their pilot school programme which helps slum children obtain a first-class education, and their internet literacy programme, helping secondary public schools connect to the internet and give children access. We also hear about their partnership with Nokia’s text2teach remote teaching aide which allows teachers to connect phones to TVs and download clips to help teach a range of subjects.