Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) is re-launching its ‘Maging Laging Handa’ miniseries. This is part of the PLDT wireless unit’s efforts to support the Department of Education (DepEd) a couple of months after the opening of the new school year amid the new normal.
Maging Laging Handa video series integrates disaster risk reduction in the education curriculum. It covers precautionary measures and safety tips for different calamities like typhoons, floods, tsunamis, storm surges, earthquakes, and landslides.
“Educating the young is a necessary step in building a disaster-resilient nation since children are among the most vulnerable when calamities strike,” said Smart VP for Community Partnerships Darwin Flores. “The Maging Laging Handa series is Smart’s contribution to helping ensure that children are included in the disaster preparedness exercise so they would know what to do in the event of a disaster, of any type and scale.”
The video series features TV host Tonipet Gabba as an online instructor. Joining him are three puppets—a mother hen named Inay Lena, a dog named Brownie, and a carabao named Kali. It also features all-original Tagalog songs that are aimed at making the learning journey richer and more exciting.
Episodes simplify disaster-related concepts like typhoon signals, rainfall warning signals, and the differences between a storm surge and a tsunami. The materials used were reviewed and approved by corresponding agencies like the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA); the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology; and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The videos come with a DepEd co-developed teachers’ guide on how the video series can be integrated into the curriculum.
Maging Laging Handa is part of Smart’s free-to-download video resources suitable for teachers’ virtual class needs. Aside from the disaster-readiness videos, other supplementary teaching materials include the LearnSmart e-Storytelling series and the gardening web series Kalye Mabunga. All those video resources align with DepEd’s Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELC). The episodes were also enhanced to include Filipino sign language translation and in-depth analysis by a child psychologist at the end of each story.
The content is mostly in the mother tongue. This is because Smart wants to keep its goal of providing original homegrown content in local languages that local communities could appreciate.