Toyota Motor Philippines (TMP), the country’s leading mobility company, gave away free books and partnered with local children’s bookstore Basa Bookstore for the educational campaign and storytelling caravan Lakbay-Kuwentuhan.
Basa Bookstore toured different provinces with the All-New Toyota Lite Ace Panel Van to deliver storybooks to children for the first leg of the Lakbay Kuwentuhan caravan.
An initiative by Basa Bookstore to celebrate International Book Giving Day last February 14, Lakbay-Kuwentuhan hopes to raise awareness about the importance of education among Filipino children and encourage them to read by distributing locally published books. The campaign aims to give away 5,000 books to public schools, reach 10,000 students, and facilitate 20 storytelling workshops for 1,000 public school teachers across the Philippines in 2023 alone.
In February, the Lakbay-Kuwentuhan caravan traveled around South Luzon delivering storybooks to children from Laguna, Quezon, Camarines Sur, Sorsogon, Masbate, and Albay in the Bicol region.
“When we started the book-giving caravan amidst a pandemic and after Typhoon Ulysses, Toyota was eager to support our cause. We at Lakbay-Kuwentuhan aim to bring Filipino stories written by Filipino authors for Filipino children to communities across the country to lessen the effects of the pandemic on children’s reading attitudes and in support of DepEd’s ‘Bawat Bata Bumabasa’ campaign,” said Rey Bufi, founder and chief storytelling officer of Basa Bookstore.
2,430 km traveled, 3,000 kids reached, thousands of free books given away
With over 2,430 km traveled, TMP has helped the organization reach 12 communities in the provinces to over 3,000 students. Lakbay-Kuwentuhan conducted three workshops and gave six storytelling sessions in the last caravan.
The Toyota Lite Ace is designed to help business owners—especially small entrepreneurs—succeed in improving the quality of life in their communities. Equipped with the size and capacity to transfer items and goods with ease and speed, The Lite Ace Panel Van helped mobilize the Lakbay-Kuwentuhan caravan and efficiently deliver books to children.
“Part of promoting a better quality of life for Filipinos is nurturing young minds and providing them with the tools for continuous learning. We at TMP believe that all children deserve quality education as this will prepare them for their future and help mold them into the person they hope to become. We support initiatives such as this from Basa Bookstore and we are honored to be part of this caravan. We thank them for trusting Toyota and look forward to more similar future activities powered by our goal of creating mobility for all,” said Elvin Luciano, TMP assistant vice president of marketing services.
Designed to be easily driven, maintained, and offered at an affordable price, the Toyota Lite Ace is also available in pickup, cargo, and FX variants, the Lite Ace’s efficiency, flexible load capacity, and low fuel consumption enable drivers and business owners to maximize their trips and increase savings.