LES Philippines: Enabling Grassroots Creativity with The Storytelling Project MOU

Future storytellers presenting their best cat-like pose during The Storytelling Project’s Storytelling Workshop last 28 May 2022 in Makati City, Philippines.

LES Philippines (LESP) Education Committee Head and Past President Leslie Anne T. Cruz, together with LES International Past President Patricia A. O. Bunye; LESP President Bayani B. Loste, and LESP President-Elect Vida Panganiban-Alindogan, attended the Storytelling Workshop of The Storytelling Project (TSP) last 28 May 2022 in Makati City, Philippines.

The team of LESP storytellers broke from their lawyerly confines to actively participate during the workshop. Their engagement with TSP that Saturday morning was part of Leslie's LES IP Kids Day initiative in the Philippines, which started on 17 March 2020, to celebrate the memory of the late Patrick Terroir, LES International's former Patent and Technology Licensing committee head and past president of LES France.

LES Philippines’ Leslie Ann T. Cruz and Vida Panganiban-Alindogan flank TSP’s founder Rey S. Bufi, with TSP Executive Director Daniel Joseph Benito on the far left after affirming the MOU between the two organizations.

After the workshop, Leslie and Vida represented LESP, while TSP's founder Rey S. Bufi, and Executive Director, Daniel Joseph Benito, acted for TSP, in affirming in person the Memorandum of Understanding between the two organizations, which was virtually executed on 5 May 2022. The MOU seeks to promote the habit of reading in children from underprivileged communities and teach the importance of protecting intellectual property rights at a young age.

TSP is a non-profit organization that fosters the love of reading through storytelling to cultivate imagination, inspiration, and hope in Filipino families. Since 2012, TSP has donated more than 10,000 storybooks to libraries and Filipino children and shared stories with more than 10,000 kids in 30 provinces.