For our final requirement in our LaSallian Business Leadership, Ethics and CSR subject we decided as a group to do community service for Santa Monica Elementary School in Bulacan. Before we got directly to do our community service, we started with our fundraising to provide for the materials and expenses needed in performing our service learning. We had two kinds of fundraising. The first one was selling makeup products from Rustans. We picked Rustans because my group mate Jobs works there and she has access in buying wholesale makeup products. With the short time given to do our fund raising, we thought that it was easy to sell products that are already made rather than doing a product from scratch which would require a lot of effort and would be time consuming. Our second fundraising in our group was to organize a yoga class. The intention was to promote health and wellness for our participants. It would have a mutual benefit to both parties because the proceeds of the yoga class will go directly into the Santa Monica Elementary School in improving the school’s structure.
Our service
learning activity will be done as a class because the activity would be
difficult if the participants are only one group which has 4 members. Our class
has 6 groups which has enough members to perform the service learning activity.
We divided the service learning activity into two tasks; the women in our class
repainted and repaired classroom chairs and tables while the men made an
elevated in the school’s entrance. The school was recently been hit by a
Typhoon that is why it was necessary to elevate their walkway on the entrance
so that it would be convenient for teachers and students to enter and exit the
school whenever there is a heavy rain.
I have learned
a lot in our fundraising activities and service learning project. At first, I
thought of it as a requirement that needs to be done so I could move on and
serve another community in the future if it’s necessary or if it’s required. I
was wrong on that concept because when I got to experience it there, it
escalated to me quickly the difference of real-world problems from theory and
practice which is lectured in the classroom.
On our fundraising activity I have given the opportunity to develop my entrepreneurial
skills by selling make up products and tickets to our yoga class. It was not an
easy task to communicate with possible buyers and participants because I really
don’t have any idea how to sustain the demand of our product and service. So I
made a lot of inquiry from one person to another until I got connected with
someone who was interested. It was very difficult but the pressure was somehow
a great experience because I got to know myself better in terms of deciding what
to prioritize and how to seek demand more efficiently.
On our actual
community service, I was more involved in constructing the elevated pathway in
the school. It required heavy physical work by mixing and transporting cement. It
was not just the work itself that I had learned and absorbed, the main learning
was within the community and the different kinds of stories from the people
there. The school principal was very clear of what the school needed and how we
could help to improve it. I just had a few conversations with the school
principal and she was well organized with her goals and plans for the school.
She knows how to address the problems and not just randomly point on things and
make an activity out of it.
Being involved
in the activity made me learn so much about myself, one of it is having the
capability to do more in life as a private individual. It is given that public
servants or politicians that are voted into a certain position must do their
duty to serve the community. Of course we cannot depend on them on everything
to make our communities better; we are also responsible as citizens to offer
our help to the communities. I am aware that we can do a lot for the community
as a private individual but it was more of a mindset rather than in real
practice. Doing our community immersion gave me the opportunity to practice
community service where I’ve felt it as a start to further advance my
participation in the future. I have done community service in during my college
days. I did not appreciate it back then as much as I have appreciated it in my
current community service as a graduate school student maybe because I was more
experienced this time around where I am already working as an employee. The
maturity that I have gained over the years made me more aware of what is going
on around the world and the importance of being involved in serving the
community and the protecting the environment. It is very rare to value service
for the community at a very young stage and it so much better if we appreciate
it in an early stage. In fact it is an advantage if those who are serving the
community are young individuals because most of them literally have the
physical strength and intelligence for sustainable developments. Young individuals
are capable of being producing innovative solutions to problems that could
benefit the community and the environment.
My journey
begins here as a graduate student to do more than just being an employee, a
student, a family member or a friend. I believe that it is more fulfilling to
come out of my shell as an individual who could offer service to the community
and towards others. I believe that it is one thing that I am lacking as an
individual. In order to determine my true purpose in life, I need to be more
than what I am underneath. Most of us just look at things on the outside and
complain about the discomfort that life brings us. Acting upon it gives that
positive feeling that things around us could be managed and could be salvaged.
This civic
responsibility engaged all of the stakeholders where there is a mutual benefit
for the student, the community and the university. As students, we learned the
discipline and the development of basic skills in recognising it through
practice. We generally reflect upon the social, ethical or humanitarian
characteristics that the community needs. These activities I believe is in line
with the University’s mission to develop the student’s attributes in community
service learning.
Happiness is a
mutual feeling that everyone wants. We all want to be happy in our own circle
of friends, family, colleagues and workplace. What better happiness it would
bring if we combine our efforts altogether to serve our community. Not only we
preserve and improve our surroundings, we also get the chance to meet new
people who have the positivity in making our world a better place. With a
common positive goal that is set, it could be easy for us to address problems
and make solutions for them. The problem is most of us does not communicate is
not open with one another. The truth is we all have a common world and
community that we live in. We are just standing in similar grounds all around
this planet. There is lack of awareness about the importance of service
learning towards the community and that those individuals like me who were
exposed in such activity should serve as leaders to influence others in helping
the community that would mutually benefit us. Having a degree, a higher power
or having wealth and possessions does not mean that someone is more fortunate
than the other. We are all equal in the world that we live in, although its
hard to see it on the outside, we are all equal human beings that lives in a
common ground. It is not luck to learn and be involved in the activities of a
graduate student, I am here because of a purpose –and that purpose is to use
and share my knowledge of being a responsible individual. Somehow we could make
a change, not for the feeling of being good or being happy just for self
contentment, true happiness is when you give and make others happy without
expecting something in return.
