The Tara, Basa! Tutoring Program is a developmental and community-based social protection that aids low-income families and college students while empowering them to be involved in nation-building as Tutors and Youth Development Workers or YDWs through Cash-for-Work.

As Tutors, the college students will teach children who are struggling or non-readers.
YDWs will conduct parenting sessions with parents or guardians on the care and protection of children and guide them to be the first teachers at home or “Nanay- Tatay Teacher.”

The Tara, Basa! program, the reformatted educational assistance of the DSWD, establishes a learning ecosystem in which college students from state universities and colleges (SUCs) are trained and assigned as youth development workers (YDWs) to lead “nanay-tatay” sessions and as tutors to teach underprivileged and struggling readers in public elementary schools. College students tapped by the program are provided with cash for work assistance P500 per day for a 20-day cycle.

From the NCR pilot schools, the Tara, Basa! Program will be expanded to public elementary schools in the following areas: Regions 1 (Ilocos Region); 5 (Bicol Region); 9 (Zamboanga Peninsula); MIMAROPA; CARAGA, National Capital Region (NCR); Regions 3 (Central Luzon); 7 (Central Visayas); 8 (Eastern Visayas); 10 (Northern Mindanao); 12 (SOCCSKSARGEN); and CALABARZON.