Thursday, September 2, 2010
Day 16 (9/2/10)
In any case, on to the actual day! At 11 AM, we got to Cebu City National Science High School. The kids from both UP Cebu and Sci-High worked on their afternoon presentations for the students at Barangay Pasil Elementary. The presentation groups were led by students from the education committee (a bit of background: the kids were separated into Education, NGO/LGU, Outreach and Finance committees to give them a choice of experiences for on-ground work). The students were very creative—they even came up with a jingle in Cebuano/English to teach sanitation and hygiene to the elementary school students.
At 1 PM, we were all off to our respective assignments for the day. The NGO/LGU group went to the hotel in one of the team members’ rooms, to do some internet research and make materials for Friday’s information drive that will target about 150 parents of the Barangay Pasil Elementary kids. Education/Finance and Outreach Team were off to Barangay Pasil. The Education team went to various classrooms of 1st through 3rd graders to do the presentations and distribute activity books to the children.
And I guess now I could talk about what the Outreach Team did, which I’m most familiar with since I was on it. We aimed to finish the mural today. This thing has turned out to be one of the biggest projects of our team. At first we expected to get maybe a 5’ x 5’ wall area in a random part of the school for the mural, but the principal gave to us instead a HUMONGOUS wall at a central location (that is, the STAGE) in the elementary school. After a lot of sweating while painting, being surrounded by 234,123 elementary school kids curious as to what we were doing to their school stage (don’t ever do this again around lunch time), and getting on sketchy, rickety ladders to paint the top area of the wall, here is the latest on the mural:
The finishing touches will be put on tomorrow. :) :(
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Day 9 (8/26/10) Woohoo!
Friday, August 27, 2010
Day 10: Fun Day! (27/08/2010)
Monday, August 23, 2010
Off to Barangay Luz!
I apologize for my poor transitions and the like; the internet is so unpredictable (except during internet parties) and seeing as it's so late at night/early in the morning and I'm next to a sleeping Chan, I have to keep it short.
The man who spoke to us was, I believe, the secretary of Barangay Luz. He was so passionate and proud of his community, and seemed really eager to inform the students. The students also got to see the products made by the people of Barangay Luz, and receive a more in-depth education of vermiculture. Vermiculture is a process by which worms and compost are used for the purpose of recycling. The worms get to eat, the products get to be recycled, and the people of Barangay Luz have a cleaner community and economic success with the program. What's not to love?
As a side note, the recycled products from Barangay Luz are of incredible style and quality. I personally wanted to buy them all. But I'd have to ask mommy Diana for money first!
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We left in the bus from Barangay Luz to drop off the U.P. students at rehearsal. Riding the bus is always a top opportunity to grow closer to one's mentees, as well as the students in general. They're intellectuals, they're captivating, and they're wise beyond their years.
And, they really are teenagers.
They giggle and tease, sing, TEXT, and sometimes forget to live in the moment because they're looking ahead into their futures. Looking around at them, I just have to take a step back and, cheesy as it sounds, smile. They possess a certain glow of freedom, endless potential, and innocence that is unique to people of their age group.
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As we sadly let the U.P. students go off to rehearse, we happily took the Sci High students to the next activity of the day.
The Waste Management team did a great job (thumbs-up, team!) leading the groups of Sci High students, challenging them to apply the 5-step process to what they had learned earlier today. The students also did a great job of responding for their first year of SEALNet. I have no doubt that next year, or even now, they'll be just as strong as the U.P. students at the workshops.
Today was also exciting at the hotel, for multiple reasons. The kidnapping situation in Manila occurred today, and we're all hoping that Domily gets to stay with us. Luckily, we were able to take our minds off of the news during debrief when, thanks to the feedback our PL's asked for today (and Darwin), we were all focused on improving on what we're already doing with the students. But of course, another way to take your mind of bad news is laughter, and we were provided that during 'spotlight on', when Kenneth was, for lack of a better word, Kenneth.
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Debrief was brief today, and we all went to our group headquarters (why yes, it does sound more intense than it actually is) to work on our plans. Outreach never ceases to amaze me. Staying up until around 3 AM for almost three nights is crazy! Although we may scare some people a bit with our ravenous appetite for exceptional activity books, I think we can handle our timeline and still have quality time with our mentees. The other groups are also well organized. The Leadership group is really spirited, and their workshops are going to be loads of fun. Waste Management is doing a fair job getting acclimated, as they are a new group.All in all, today has been just another day in SEALNet: Challenging in a good way, and irreplaceable. As I told Diana and Kelly, I didn't know exactly what to expect when I came to the Philippines for this trip. But I think I can safely say that all of us got, if not what we expected, something better. SEALNet isn't just another thing to say you did, or put on an application. It's a life-long, valuable experience for mentee and mentor alike.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Day 3 (8/21/10)
After the summary, we discussed a change in the group subteams; instead of having the originally-planned Sanitation Group, we would have a Waste Implementation Group. This change was a result of the clarification of the direction of our project last night. The Outreach and Leadership Teams remained. However, we were given the option to switch groups, which Robi took. After some serious angst, Angela and Elle accepted this fact. We also discussed the project budget.
We had 3 hours of FREE TIME, which involved trips to the Laundromat, Magellan's ("underwhelming" but still fun) cross, and the supermarket.
Once we regrouped, we began intensive preparation in our subgroups. After dinner (PIG'S BLOOD!), the groups debriefed one another on their progress. The Outreach Group presented a draft of an activity booklet for the elementary students on waste and sanitation education, including connect-the-dots and a comic strip. They set a timeline for the production of posters and calendars that the high school students would help design and translate into Cebuano. The Leadership Group presented an outline of the leadership workshop we'd do tomorrow. This included a dry-run of our lecture on the 5-step process of service leadership (1.Identify a Problem, 2.Identify Causes, 3.What You Can Do, 4.What Others Can Do the Help You, 5.Implementation). We had some very interesting role-playing students, including one who was quite concerned about shark finning. The Waste Implementation Group outlined the discussion we would have after the leadership workshop tomorrow, which would involve applying the 5-step service leadership process to the specific case of Barangay Pasil.
And then we had our OMG A.PLAN IS LEAVING TOMORROW time. Commence (sorry, I meant adjourn) with the love fest. We each made a string bracelet for Andrew (which he is never allowed to take off) and then said something we were thankful to Andrew for. Bromance was uber thick in the air. The tension reached a tipping point when Tom asked Andrew for some alone time after the meeting and Andrew responded with a passionate love song.
The rest of the night was spent wrapping up tasks in the subgroups.
-Nicole
Day 2 (8/20/10)
We learned that the Pasil community as a large transient population. The local government is very supportive of waste segregation, but is constrained in its ability to implement a program due to lack of space. In-home vermicomposting (as in using worms to compost) may be the solution. Vermicomposting could be especially effective because of Pasil's large fishing industry, which means that a large portion of Pasil's waste is biodegradable. Most importantly, we learned that Mike Rama =/= My Grandma.
We were running late, so we rushed over to UP Cebu High School to get lunch at their cafeteria. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough "lunch" food left, so we bought cakes and chips for fuel. Then we met the UP Cebu high school students! We talked about the definition of service leadership--repeating our workshop with the Cebu National Science High school students from the previous day. And we got paired with our mentees! Talking one (or two)-on-one about absolutely anything was a ton of fun, and definitely the highlight for me.
After some delish take-out, we had a group meeting concerning the direction of our project. This included the "stake" of our project--the underlying motivation for our work--which we phrased as "Education, Inspiration, and Waste Management Implementation." We also determined our "outcome," or concrete goals, which included creating a leadership handbook and forming a partnership between Feed the Children Philippines and the high school students. We finished with a brainstorm of the topics we want to address in the leadership workshops.
-Nicole/Kenneth
Day 1: PP10 Begins!
(my apologies for the belated start to the blog -- the internet has been a bit fuzzy these past few days)
Hello all, and welcome to the Project Philippines 2010 blog! For those of you who don’t know, Project Philippines 2010 is run by members of SEALNet, the Southeast Asian Service Leadership Network, which promotes service leadership and youth empowerment across Southeast Asia through international service projects.
I can’t believe Day 1 of the project has finally come. As a SEALNet co-president, I’ve been checking in with the project leaders ever since they decided to step up, so seeing this project unfold before my eyes is really fulfilling.
We began the day with a quick breakfast and headed over to the office of one of our local partners, Feed the Children-Philippines (FTCP). FTCP is an NGO that focuses on meeting the fundamental needs of children as laid out in the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child program – food, shelter, etc. Our team got to meet the gracious staff and our contact, Ms. Esperanza, who really did a lot to inspire the team through her excitement for SEALNet’s efforts and her openness to a long-term partnership.
After departing from the FTCP office, we headed over to UC-Banilad, where we worked on coming up with ‘ground agreements,’ which are a set of agreements that everyone comes up with together to define the manner in which all the team members interact with each other.
Then…Jollibee!!
Jollibee is like McDonalds, except uber-awesome sauce. So yeah, that was lunch :)
After lunch, we headed over to meet the students of Cebu National Science High School, one of the two groups of high students we’ll be working with this year. As a team, we were a little anxious about the students being shy around us, but that fear was quickly dispelled as we got to interact with the students. Although this is the first year Project Philippines gets to work with Cebu National, you’d hardly be able to tell – the students were compassionate, charismatic and gifted with impeccable comic timing. We did a workshop with them where they worked together to visually present their interpretation of service leadership; I think all the team members were pretty blown away by how insightful (and funny!) the students were in their presentations.
While the rest of the team wrapped up the workshop, some of us accompanied the project leaders to UP-Cebu, our other partner high school, to negotiate the project schedule, as the principal had concerns about the number of school days missed by the students. The principal was very accommodating with us, and we settled on a revised schedule pretty quickly.
In the evening we had dinner at Golden Courie in the SM Mall, where I also managed to snag a guitar in a nearby store for some impromptu singalongs. When we got back to the hotel, it was time to debrief about the day’s happenings and set the project objectives as a team, which will be finalized today (Day 2).
Day 1 really inspired me and filled me with hope – hope for the project, hope for the future of SEALNet, hope for Southeast Asia in general. Everyone involved with this project have their hearts in the right place, and I truly believe this project has a great chance of doing something really special in the long-term for the communities of Cebu City.
Well that’s all for me. Till tomorrow…
-APlan