City library joins National Heritage Month

The National Library of the Philippines (NLP), in partnership with the Davao City Library and Information Center (CLIC), on Wednesday kicked off the National Heritage Month at the Magallanes Elementary School.

The celebration is aimed at encouraging the schoolchildren’s appreciation of culture by assimilating important lessons on heritage in reading and storytelling.

This year’s celebration, themed “Heritage: Change and Continuity”, also featured the “E-Salin ang Kuwento: Online Kuwentuhan sa mga Pampublikong Aklatan” program—a simultaneous nation-wide reading activity conducted by the public libraries of four cities (Davao, Iloilo, Baguio, and Parañaque). Each public library was tasked to create a story with valuable lessons on heritage and culture. Their stories were then read aloud to grade school pupils and live streamed through the NLP’s Facebook page.

“Ika-duha na ni siya karon na nag-celebrate ta sa National Heritage Month. Ang una na gihatag nato na story ato kay ang story sa durian, ug karon ang ikaduha mao ni siya ang story sa malong. So kining gihatag na story nato kay kita gyud nagbuhat ani, kita nagsulat. Gi-training ta ani sa National Library para magbuhat og short story about sa atoang pamana (This is the second time we are celebrating the National Heritage month. The first story we told was about the durian, and now the second story we will be telling is the story about the malong. We wrote this story we are telling. We were trained by the National Library to write a story about our heritage),” DCLIC Mobile Library focal person Arnel Enoc said in an interview with the City Information Office on Wednesday.

The story read to the students of Magallanes Elementary School emphasized the importance of appreciating and preserving the tradition of textile weaving in Davao.

The CLIC also conducted a storytelling activity for Grade 1 to Grade 5 students, room-to-room reading activity for Kindergarten to Grade 3 to pupils, book-reading in the city mobile library, and a disaster preparedness and awareness orientation for Grade 6 students.

With these activities, the DCLIC hopes to encourage love of reading and love of culture among children in Davao City. CIO