It was Palm Sunday. It was also Pacquiao Sunday. And being female, I scheduled a GK1MB meeting with the UNEP (University of NorthEastern Phils.) group for 10:00 am at the GK Iriga Village. Coach, the GK1MB guy from the Manila office had to go and miss the Pacquiao match.
We got to the site at 9:30 am. A huge tent was already set-up (used previously that week for the SIBOL graduation) and the caretaker team arrived full force. We were impressed and surprised because it showed their real commitment to the village. The KB's were invited to come down and join the activity. The UNEP students were arriving at 10:00 am so we had time to brief the caretaker team and the KB's on what was going to happen.
Background
Last week, on March 8-9, a group of UNEP students accompanied by some faculty immersed themselves in the GK Character Village in Iriga in compliance of their CWTS subject for their freshmen year. We had met later on that week (March 13) with the Head of Student Affairs and GK Champion Bong Candido in order to build up the GK1MB base in UNEP. In that meeting, Sir Bong shared with us what had transpired the previous weekend and we thought it was best to do an immediate follow-up that following weekend.
The students, Sir Bong said, felt bitin and wanted to stay longer. They didn't participate in any build that weekend but simply lived in with the residents -- just like being part of their family. Three students to one family. And many were touched by how the families shared whatever they had left for themselves with the student visitors. A surprising thing for these kids because they went there expecting to be the ones to share of themselves to these families.
Luckily, the UNEP students were to return to that area the following Sunday (March 16) for a tree-planting activity within the vicinity (as part of their CWTS completion once again). So we invited Sir Bong to bring the same students back to GK Iriga for a short 1-hour session with us. He happily agreed.
Setting up GK1MB in UNEP
We thought it best to grow GK1MB in UNEP through this initial batch of students -- only because of their recent experience in GK Iriga. We could have gone and targeted talking to the Student Council and heads of organizations but... it was already the end of the school year (the last week, in fact). Most of them have their heads in exams and have no experience whatsoever with GK. This group of CWTS students -- although in their freshmen year -- had great potential just the same. First, they already had an inspiring and powerful GK experience to latch on and second, they came from different colleges : nursing, HRM, social sciences, etc. It would be a good army within the school to start with -- and they could spread the GK virus althroughout the university.
Coach gave an inspiring talk about GK1MB. He spoke of the growing movement, focusing on the schools and the youth all over the country. Coach's personal testimony as a La Salle student who put aside his dreams of becoming a doctor in the meantime so he could join in rebuilding his country in the here and now probably made a lot of them think hard about their own plans in their lives. He also spoke about how he got bitten by the GK bug during his first La Salle GK camp (just like their GK immersion) in Baseco.
There were a hundred students who arrived that morning. They were tired from the couple of hours of tree-planting and most of them were really just there because it was required by their teacher. But many were listening intently to what we were sharing -- and they were also fascinated about what they were seeing happening in other parts of the country through the videos we showed them.
Our goal that day was to "recruit" a handful to serve as the GK1MB core group in UNEP. Sir Bong Candido was already a GK champion but we needed to cinch the deal by getting a group of worker students to proper the movement with him in the various colleges and orgs. When we called for students who wished to be part of the core group, about 10 students (boys and girls) stood up! They were enough to get this thing going. They promised their commitment to meet with us after holy week.
Another goal we had was to get the students to mobilize a Team UNEP for the Bayani Challenge in Mindanao. There was visible interest and excitement among them -- specially once we said that we would help them find people to "sponsor" their transpo (hopefully we can ask help from the LGU). They agreed that they could take care of their food and bring their "camp" stuff. We just need to do a follow-up for this in their school. Maybe by just working with the core team -- it would be easy to set this up.
We end a bit past 12 noon (the students arrived at 11 am instead of 10am) very optimistic about the UNEP GK1MB Chapter. :) We completely miss the live telecast of Pacquiao's fight - which he won. We had our own win in this part of the world.
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