Arcie Mallari

Arcie is committed to educating and empowering children and youth by facilitating the discovery of their life’s purpose and love for learning that will inspire and empower them in creating socially responsible innovations. Arcie is passionate about culture, diversity, geography, education, traveling and reading.

Arcie, the first Sauvé Scholar from the Philippines is, as far as is known, also the only Sauvé Scholar to have lived in a dumpsite. His experience led to the creation of Silid Aralan, whose purpose is to empower children by facilitating their discovery of their fullest potential, developing their love for learning and discovering their life’s purpose.

The concept of Silid Aralan, Inc (SAI) , or “Learning Room”, of which Arcie is Founder and President, came from Arcie’s experience when he lived in one of the dumpsites in the Philippines, called Payatas after graduating from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines with a BA in Political Economy.  He witnessed children and youth scavengers and his life became intimately intertwined with the lives of young men and women who lived in deepest poverty.  It was there that he met youth who dreamed of being a jeepney driver, or a housemaid; and high school students who could not read or comprehend their textbooks. Arcie was inspired to create an advocacy and develop unique education programs.

Three years later, the first set of scholars graduated. Romanicnic, who aspired to be a housemaid, graduated and got a job. She was able to support her brother while he finished his college degree and was also able to take her family out of the dumpsite to live a decent life.

Now, Silid Aralan, in partnership with local government, corporations and other local businesses, has changed the lives of thousands of underprivileged and academically-challenged students throughout the Philippines. No longer considered low-performing students, they are now academic achievers.

Building ten Silid Aralan Community of Learners Centres, training around 5,000 students, employee and teacher-volunteers nationwide, mobilizing 500 parent volunteers; and affecting thousands of children in two years is daunting.  Through all these programs like Silid Aralan, Inc, Arcie’s greater accomplishment is leading the way towards empowerment, creating heroes and mobilizing hundreds of others to educate and empower the children in a concrete, tangible and sustainable way.

In addition to being the Founder and President of SAI, Arcie is a member of the International Planning Committee of the UNESCO Chair and Institute of Comparative Human Rights, and a consultant to the Monark Group of Companies. He has been in the field of children’s and youth development for 12 years now.  He developed the learning framework of SAI called Silid Aralan Learning Technology (SALT) which has helped thousands of children since its introduction in 2007. He was the Project Director for the youth development project in Payatas, Quezon City, and created educational and scholarship programs for underprivileged youth who wanted to go to colleges.  With experience and expertise in children and youth development, specifically in education, he has been invited to deliver trainings for more than one thousand public and private school teachers, government and private sector employees and managers nationwide.

Arcie’s project as a Sauvé Scholar was to design and plan Super Kids: Create Heroes, Be a Hero! and to create training modules for its facilitators. The focus was on developing skills and confidence through heroism and community outreach. Why heroes?  Heroes achieve success by believing in the power of their ideas, having the confidence to take risks and to fail, persevering and overcoming obstacles, recognizing opportunities, and finding new and better ways to solve problems.

With the Super Kids Project, facilitators can assist the kids they work with to develop the critical and creative thinking skills they need in creating breakthrough results and possibilities.  Through fun, creative, and rapid learning that sticks, Super Kids inspires kids to discover their passions, think creatively and independently, take responsibility, embrace change, persevere, be effective problem solvers, and much more.

Arcie aimed to develop a Super Kids module for academically-challenged or low performing students throughout the Philippines. To do this, he spent much of his time as a Sauvé Scholar learning about child and youth motivation and leadership. Furthermore, he built an income generating element into the program so that Super Kids may become economically sustainable and replicated throughout the Philippines. In this way, it is his hope that low performing students will become student leaders and will in turn impact their communities and inspire other kids to become heroes.