While most young women her age were busy pursuing a career that could define their future, Clarissa Delgado, at 25, was putting together a non-profit organisation that could define the future of somebody else: the Filipino child in a public school. In 2012 Delgado co-founded Teach for the Philippines, an organisation that works to provide all Filipino children with an excellent education by enlisting some of the country’s most promising talents to teach for two years in a public elementary school.

Philippine Tatler: What exactly is your role in the organisation and what does your position require of you? 

Clarissa Delgado: I help set strategic goals and run day-to-day operations for Teach for the Philippines.

PT: Why did you decide to focus on education? Why is this particular advocacy close to your heart?

CD: Poverty and growing inequity are amongst our country’s most challenging “wicked problems." (“Wicked Problem” is a term coined by professor and design theorist Horst Willhelm Rittel in 1973 to describe a form of social or cultural problem that is difficult to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements.) Like the hydra, wicked problems have many heads. From food distribution to education to anti­corruption, there is space for many people to get involved in the solution. I choose education in particular because I believe that to alleviate poverty, the first step is to change the way in which those entrenched in it perceive themselves. To alleviate poverty a society must have the sense that they can shape their own future. It is only through education that individuals are taught this.

PT: What are you most proud of about the organisation?

CD: I am proud that our organization is part of a global network of social enterprises that are all working to solve education inequity. Some of our most prominent network partners are Teach for America and Teach First in the UK. I am especially proud of the way that the team in the Philippines has localized the model. Like our partners, Fellows lead their public school students to success, measured through classroom data. But Teach for the Philippines is different in a number of critical ways. A few examples are our sensitivity to the community, our specific strategy for placement, and our training. Teach for the Philippines Fellows are trained and expected to run projects that transform the communities they enter – whether that is sharing progressive pedagogy with co­teachers or leveraging resources for everyone in their school. We also have a more specific and involved placement strategy which studies the specific needs of the communities we work in – if they need teachers in general, specific teachers, or experience other shortages. We are currently building depth into our team to be able to help our school communities where they need it. Finally, we are very involved in researching trauma training and how to teach life skills in our classrooms (esp. decision making and understanding consequences). We run a continuous 24-month training continuum.

Kilo Henares distributing snacks to his students

Read more about Clarissa Delgado's passion for education in the August 2014 issue of Philippine Tatler, available in any leading newsstands and bookstores. Download the digital version on your device from Magzter and Zinio.