A vibrant forest filled with trees, animals and flowers has magically leapt from the pages of a children’s book into an ancestral home in Bacolod City.
This is HOPEtopia, a newly opened interactive children’s museum, learning center, and activity hub located at 54th Lizares Avenue.
Managed by the Negrense Volunteers for Change, the space serves as a whimsical sanctuary for environmental education and the love of reading books.
The inspiration for the museum comes from the book “Our Common Home: A Laudato Si’ Story”, written by Australia-based Filipina author Bernadette Silvana.
The book is inspired by an encyclical by Pope Francis detailing the importance of caring for the Earth, a message for people of all faiths.
By translating the book’s theme of ecological stewardship into a physical, play-based environment for children who walk through it with wide-eyed wonder, HOPEtopia aims to instill a deep love for nature in the next generation.
In the heavily illustrated book, Silvana writes and paints about a grand home where its “hallways stretched long and wide with forests, jungles, and deserts of sand and ice,” which makes the 80-year-old home where Dr. Francisco and Carmen Kilayko once resided with their family a perfect setting.
Chart Motus, a well-known Bacolod-based actress, takes children and their parents on a lively interactive walk-through of HOPEtopia where windows and a room open up to show paintings of people of all races “living” in the forest home.
In this home, there was harmony until humans failed to take care of it, Motus tells the children as she walks them through a dark room that shakes with the loud sounds of thunder into a place of devastation, prompting Ethan Quirante, a 5-year-old child who was the youngest on a recent tour of the home to shout, “Disgusting!”
The tour ends in a room filled with animals in a forest plastered on the walls, where children along with their parents, write or draw their commitments to saving “our common home”, which are dropped into a “mailbox”.
On a tour of HOPEtopia, 12-year-old Derek Sanchez came dressed as Pope Francis, inspired by his Laudato Si’ message.
Jaden Bien Ojas-Fernandez, a 13-year-old boy with autism, said at the end of the tour that the book by Bernadette Silvana was brought to life in the house.
“Thank you for making this masterpiece,” he said, adding that he wanted to return for the books in HOPEtopia’s library next because they are his favorite.
The museum has an extensive library of books donated by NVC Foundation’s friends worldwide, most of them from Singapore
Millie Kilayko, NVC president, said HOPEtopia, also hosts reading sessions for children. The reading sessions, led by teacher Mary Jane Quilisadio, aim to bring back children’s love of reading books and to keep them away, even for just half a day, from being glued to their tablets and cell phones.
She cites their foundation’s ground experience with stunted children enrolled in their nutrition program, where the physical and emotional growth children with extensive exposure to gadgets are hampered.
While the museum’s structure, books and activity supplies are gifts from NVC Foundation’s supporters, a donation for its upkeep and maintenance expenses is requested, starting at P100 for reading sessions and P150 for children who participate in the walk through of the interactive museum.
HOPEtopia is also open as a venue for children’s parties and activities, Kilayko said.
“After we have settled, we will also invite children from marginalized sectors to join activities without a request for a donation towards defraying our costs,” she added.
Garden 54, where the museum is located, is also the home of NVC’s showroom and the Artisans of Hope livelihood workshop where mosaic crafts are made and showcased, helping raise funds for the foundation’s feeding programs for malnourished children and livelihood programs for their parents.
While the interiors of the ancestral house have been transformed into an interactive museum, the exteriors have also been encrusted with mosaic accents to highlight the craft produced in the workshop.
The complex also includes Mary’s Garden where children have a place to romp and a larger than life image of Our Lady of Miraculous Medal in mosaic is the centerpiece.
Those interested in visiting HOPEtopia can send messages through its Facebook and Instagram pages, Kilayko said.*
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