MUSEO SANG BATA SA NEGROS

Vision. A premiere children’s hands-on museum that will awaken and stimulate the creative and intellectual potential of children allowing them to discover, understand and appreciate themselves, others, their environment, their culture and the rest of the world.

Mission. To establish an alternative center of learning and discovery that will enhance and stimulate the children to reach their highest potential.

Objectives:

• To provide children a place where they can actively make connections among ideas, people and cultures and help them form positive and balanced images of self, others and the world around them through creative play.
• To encourage children to define their roles in and to their local community as well as to the global community.
• To stimulate the creative minds of the children and to help them understand, appreciate, love and be proud of their environment and culture, through programs and activities in the seven (7) arts.
• To inculcate in children a high standard of moral values to prepare them to make a stand in this rapidly changing world.

The Museo Sang Bata Sa Negros (MSBN) is a hands-on and interactive museum for children that is focused on the marine environment. It is located on the shoreline of Barangay Old Sagay, beside the 32,000 hectares Sagay marine protected area, or locally called SMR (Sagay Marine Reserve). Close to 90% of the people living in and around this area are dependent on the marine resources for their food and livelihood.

The Museo serves as an alternative learning center for marine conservation education. Through its various programs, the Museo is slowly helping transform the local communities’ attitude towards the environment. Its flagship program is , “ Marine Conservation Education Program” where public elementary science teachers undergo training, to help raise awareness and appreciation of the marine environment especially among the children living in the Northern part of Negros from Victorias, Manapla, Cadiz, Sagay, Escalante, Toboso, Calatrava and San Carlos. To date we have trained more than 200 teachers from these areas.

Another important program and which the museum is known for is the , “ Museum Junior Guide Program” children ages 8 to 12 years of age, act as guides to visitors around the museum. Since these are mostly children of fisher folks, the knowledge they gain in this program make them good stewards of the environment.

Sectoral beneficiaries and its number:

Coastal Communities – approx. 5,000 men, women, children
Sagay City – approx. 120,000 men, women, children