Background
Locals and foreigners are known to take pilgrimage to Kalinga Mountains. They take a 10-hour ride from Manila, an hour by jeep, and a 20-minute trek to the village of Buscalan in Tinglayan municipality. Behind this odyssey is a legend, Whang-Od.
Whang-Od is a 94-year-old national heritage. She is known to be the last mambabatok (traditional tattoo artist) in existence. Batok is a form tattooing unique to Kalinga Province and is considered a dying art. This attracted tattoo enthusiasts from all over the world looking to get a piece of history marked on their skin.
Despite how local and foreign tourists frequent to visit Whang Od, this fails to provide a sustainable living to surrounding towns and villages. The town of Basao is one of these little towns that fails to benefit from tourism.
Objective
PURPOSE is TaskUs' fresh step into the world of CSR with the core mindset to help inspire the sense of existence and goodwill amongst our employees. We chose to help bring progress to areas where technology and advancements are lacking and thus affecting education. Taskus visited the beautiful town of Basao in Kalinga Mountains as part of its bigger PURPOSE. To inspire everyone to #BeBetter.
Draw spotlight on town of Basao; 250 kids lack access to books and school supplies. This is primarily due to how remote the location is from the city. Transporting goods would require an hour hike through the mountains to reach the town. Cost of supplies in Basao increases as goods are hand-carried and transported by foot across mountainous terrain which make this inaccessible to impoverish families.
Miles away from Kalinga Province, selected children of employees are supported by the company, a testament to how TaskUs recognizes the value of education through the TaskUs Scholars program. As part of its culture, TaskUs wishes to extend support even outside the company. In the spirit of one of its core values, Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork, TaskUs teammates rallied to collect donations from every site and deliver them to the town of Basao. The outreach, though a small act, provided the children of Basao with school supplies for the year.
Result
The Kalinga outreach video reached a total of 351,331 people with 165,716 video views retaining 3.7% of the viewers finishing the video. The post received 1,986 likes, and received numerous positive comments regarding the cause. With 221 video shares, this highlighted the presence of an isolated town that houses children in need of our support.
In 2009, the country's school drop out rate is at 6.08%. The number rose in to 7.82% in 2012. The Philippine Collegian notes that the K-12 system may lead up to 27%. With the act of providing school supplies to small towns inaccessible as Basao, this lessens the expenses for families to worry about education resources that their children would require.
TaskUs extends the TaskUs Scholars support beyond the company to sustain the community's Continuous Self Improvement—another core value, and would continuously provide reach to other communities.
