Fleet and Happy Hansel Schools

Fleet (First) School and Happy Hansel (Middle) School
Dueg, Brgy Begkes, Tarlac
News September 2006 Unfortunately the schools have been abandoned as the large community has fled due to life threatening rebel versus government activities in the area. Many of these people have moved over the mountain and their children now attend St Andrew's and Viking School. Alvin is now teaching at The John Zate Memorial school in Tarukan. Hopefully the future will see a revival of this community in more peaceful times.
On 10 April 2003 EVACF volunteers and their special guest - Gill Westaway, Director of the British Council in Manila - accompanied by NCIP officials and local dignitaries, travelled to Dueg, Begkes, San Clemente, Tarlac to open two schools - the Fleet School and the Happy Hansel School. The schools are situated together in the same compound, the one-classroom Fleet School acting as the First (Primary) School to Happy Hansel's two-classroom Middle School. The two buildings are linked in an L-shape by a small toilet block. Together they will cater for a total of about 150 pupils from 100 Aeta families, when the new school year begins in June. Also present at the opening ceremony was one of the teachers assigned to the school by the Department of Education. Alvin Guttierez (below) is one of EVACF's NCIP-Aeta scholars and an EVACF 3A3R Activator. He is also a fully licensed teacher.	The Fleet (First) School building - with books in the Aeta language donated by the New Zealand embassy on the table in the left of the picture .... .... the adjacent Happy Hansel School ....

EVACF past scholar, Alvin, a Fleet School Teacher	...and the toilet block linking the two schools
.... watched by eager and appreciative pupils and parents.	The certificate for the Fleet School was presented by Betty Key (EVACF Secretary and a former teacher at Calthorpe Park School) ....
Both schools were funded through the generous donations of school children in the UK - at Calthorpe Park School, Fleet in Southern England, and Happy Hansel School (Walls) and Sandwick School (Sandwick), Shetland, in the north of Scotland. The donation from Calthorpe Park School was made in connection with the school's "Mufti Day" - a special day when pupils are allowed to wear their ordinary clothes, rather than school uniform, in return for a donation to charity. The story of Happy Hansel began when Jenny Wallum discovered that her great-grandfather had been a schoolmaster at the original Happy Hansel School in Walls, Shetland from 1862 to 1878. Some time later the people of Shetland decided to make a donation to EVACF to commemorate this shared heritage. The original Happy Hansel School had been built in 1786 as a result of a wealth of community goodwill (Hansel means a "gift"). Now the present day Shetland community would be making its own gift to the people of Dueg in Tarlac.	.... and the one for the Happy Hansel School was presented by Jenny Wallum, MBE, Founder EVACF ....