The Current of Hope

Nine years ago, the Supplementary Training to Reinforce Education of the Academically gifted but Marginalized Students, or simply STREAMS, was established. STREAMS, like a stream, flows calmly, yet changes the lives of every young student that it passes through. The organization envisioned of bridging the dreams of young high school students of acquiring college education through the use of weekly enhancement sessions on specific academic subjects. These sessions help them to reinforce their knowledge in preparation for taking different college entrance exams as well as getting scholarships from various sponsors—this is the main goal of STREAMS.

More than 400 public high school students all over Misamis Oriental benefitted from STREAMS Academy since 2004. Each year, 50 to 60 lucky students are able to join the academe, and a lot of them made their college education a dream come true. The enhancement sessions occur every Saturday with efficient and effective lessons from student tutors. These tutors are credible for they teach the subjects in which they are majoring on.

The academic subjects include English, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. The weekly sessions are well-planned so that students will get high marks in every entrance exam that they will take. Getting high marks will give them the opportunity to get a scholarship to pursue their dreams to get into college. However, in the case that STREAMS will not be able to find a scholarship grant for a particular student, the student will be given recommendations to the university in which he or she is enrolling in.

XU STREAMS-Pathways to Higher Education not only enhances its students' academic performance, it also nurtures their attitudes towards life even after their stay in the academy. STREAMS provides its students with fun-filled activities which would help build their character. Such activities include social interaction with fellow students, emotional handling of life constraints, and spiritual formation of faith. In other words, STREAMS prepares the students for a more complex world that they will encounter in college. Patience, determination, and focus are needed. These values are practiced even from the first day of application. Students were unaware, though, that these values were being inculcated, but they really have gone through it. Patience was present especially in waiting for the results of the paper screening, and even in going hither and thither just to pass the requirements of the academy. Determination was seen in how one truthfully and wisely answered the panel interviewers. Lastly, focus must be practiced at all times to handle the priorities and pressures in life. These significant values are gradually developed in the students during their stay in the Academy, and eventually applied into the real world.

STREAMS-Pathways to Higher Education continues to make dreams come true and to change lives. On September 3, 2014, the organization will open its academy once more for the 10th batch of students. A decade has passed—this was how far the Academy had gone through. Like a stream, STREAMS will continue flowing as long as there are students who dream of getting into college, and STREAMS will be there to help them realize those dreams. As a STREAMS graduate, myself, I can say, “STREAMS-Pathways to Higher Education is a current to the lives of the students that brings them hope; a current that changed many lives, and will continue to change more lives.”

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