For isolated tribe, Philippine rickshaw brings learning amid pandemic

Jerico Lansang, a local government worker and parent of an Aeta student, drives a makeshift learning center on a rickshaw to the Aeta community where students struggle with distance learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in Porac, Pampanga, Philippines, October 12, 2020. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez

PORAC, Philippines (Reuters) - When the pandemic shut Philippine schools, a group of teachers living near the indigenous Aeta people became so concerned about the impact on the children of the isolated community that they initiated a novel approach to help them - learning by rickshaw.

While many students across the Philippines have been able to take online classes, the Aeta villages in a mountainous area north of Manila are largely without internet access - or even television reception - for distance learning.