Philippines Educational Projects

RACHEL Projects - Philippines

Teacher Training, RACHEL Urdaneta, Pangasinan, Philippines

A three-week RACHEL (Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning) Teacher Training Workshop was held in the Philippines in June 2025. Sponsored by the D&D Educational Foundation, the training was designed to equip educators from underserved and remote communities with practical knowledge and skills to effectively utilize the RACHEL digital learning platform in their schools, with support from the Department of Education of the Republic of the Philippines.

Included in the weeks long project was a two-day RACHEL Training workshop at CB Mall, Urdaneta, where more than 100 teachers from a diverse array of schools were equipped with the tools, strategies, and confidence to integrate the RACHEL digital learning platform into classroom instruction.

This initiative marked a pivotal moment in the national agenda to make quality digital education accessible in rural and underserved communities. RACHEL (Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning) is an innovative, offline server that provides access to educational content in areas without internet connectivity. This training marked a major step forward in building digital resilience among Filipino educators, ensuring that quality learning materials are accessible even in the most challenging environments.

To date over thirty schools on the island of Luzon have been recipients of RACHEL systems. We have a signed MOU to work with the superintendent of Pangasinan School District II and their Planning and Research Director to access the data regarding test scores from the schools from 2017-2025 and beyond.

Teachers came for the training even from schools that do not yet have RACHELs or chromebooks with the hope that their school will be chosen next for the grant.

Noordhoff Craniofacial Projects

Dennis has written grants supporting the Rotary Club’s involvement with the Noordhoff Craniofacial Foundation and has established a strong relationship with the organization. Recently, he faced a difficult decision: whether to discontinue sailing in order to fully dedicate himself to his service projects, or to end his service activities to pursue his passion for sailing.  True to his nature, he decided he would do neither - he would do both.

Dennis has contracted the construction of a Mumby 48 aluminum sailing catamaran in Cambodia. His plan is to sail the vessel to the Philippines and spend five to six months each year exploring the archipelago’s 7,000 islands during the Pacific Northwest winter.  While visiting local markets to purchase provisions, he will ask whether there are children in the area with cleft palates.  Given that cleft palate occurs in approximately one out of every 500 births among Asian populations, he is confident such children can be found.

Once identified, Dennis will coordinate with his contacts at the Noordhoff Craniofacial Foundation to arrange surgical schedules.  He will then transport the children and their caregivers by sailboat from their home islands to Manila for surgery and return them home once their treatment is complete.