Library in the Woodlands
An Envisioned Project of GreenEarth Heritage Foundation
Among trees, bright futures grow.
Imagine a state-of-the-art, LEED-certified library nestled within a forest setting.
Imagine a space with floor-to-ceiling glass, inspiring views of burgeoning trees wrapped around, where a quiet harmony between books and trees exist. All around you are reading rooms for all ages, computer rooms, an audio-visual room, outdoor reading areas, a sunken garden where children and adults can practice poetry, dance, drama. Inside the building is a culinary lab and a café that serves organic meals and teaches the community culinary literacy—-it is all about healthy cooking and eating using indigenous ingredients. One is taken to a setting where learning goes beyond books and into lived, hands-on experience through literary imagery, cooking demonstrations and even galleries of art.
Aklatan sa Kagubatan aims to become a nexus for discovery, learning, and imagination—bringing access to knowledge into the remote countryside, where such spaces are nonexistent. It is a place where minds can grow alongside forests, and where education, sustainability, and hope take root together.
By creating a library in the heart of a forest—designed sustainably, open to all ages, and rooted in community—GreenEarth hopes to plant the same seed that once took root in its rural poor scholars who came with hearts of faith and believed. A seed that says: “learning is possible here. I can dream big here”, and yes it happened. A seed that one day grows into another story of transformation, discovery, and hope.
Why put a library in the middle of a reforestation site at the foothills of the
Sierra Madre Mountains in the Philippines?
For years, GreenEarth has reflected on the dismal global rankings of Filipino children in Reading, Comprehension, Science, and Mathematics. Hiding behind these numbers is the stark reality of a non-existent culture of reading amongst its youth.
Romnick Blanco: From the Countryside to Harvard University
The story of Romnick Blanco reminds us why spaces for learning matter—especially in places where opportunity is scarce.
As a young boy growing up in a farming community two hours walk each way from GreenEarth, Romnick made a quiet but deliberate life-altering decision at age 12: every Saturday, he would take the hazardous trek to GreenEarth, across bridgeless rivers and sloping terrain in order to to attend its English and Computer Literacy classes. There were no guarantees, no promises of scholarships or success—only a personal determination to learn, to read and write better, to communicate clearly, and to understand a world beyond what was immediately visible to him.
Those Saturday classes became a turning point. Exposure to English, access to computers, learning Bible-based values and encouragement from GreenEarth mentors slowly built Romnick’s confidence and academic foundation. More importantly, they nurtured a habit that would define his future: the discipline of learning and reading beyond what was required.
That determination opened doors. With the initiative and full support of GreenEarth, Romnick eventually secured a scholarship to the International School Manila, where he was exposed to a rigorous academic environment and a culture that valued inquiry, reading, and critical thinking even more. From there, his trajectory continued upward—culminating in a full-ride scholarship to Harvard University, one of the world’s most prestigious institutions.
In 2023, Romnick graduated from Harvard with a degree in History and Government.
When asked what he believed lay at the heart of the Philippines’ learning crisis, Rom did not point to a lack of intelligence or ambition among Filipino youth. Instead, he pointed to something more fundamental: the absence of a strong culture of reading, worsened by the lack of public libraries and accessible learning spaces—especially in rural areas.
Romnick’s story is a testament to what can happen when access to learning is present, even in the most modest of settings.
A Nation of Readers
Andrew Carnegie, one of history’s greatest philanthropists, said that a library “outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people” and labeled it “a never-failing spring in the desert”.
He declared that a city cannot be considered great unless it has a great public library.
For Carnegie, libraries were not luxuries. They were engines of social mobility—places where a child from any background could educate themselves, dream bigger, and shape their own future. He believed that access to books and knowledge was among the most powerful of tools a society could offer its people.
In the same spirit, the Philippines will not become a great nation unless it raises a nation of readers—young people who are highly literate, curious, critical, and equipped to understand the world they will inherit.
Would you like to partner with GreenEarth in its vision to build Aklatan sa Kagubatan?