順天中学校・高等学校

10/3/2015

 Saturday, October 3, 1st year SGH students had a workshop about the Philippines.  This time, the instructor was the new ALT teacher who joined Junten this September, Ms.Shieba Magno.

　The workshop began with an icebreaker activity “Hep Hep Hurray”, a famous game in one of the Philippine game shows in which most of the Filipinos  knows.  Then Ms.Magno showed a video about the culture, natural resources and people of the Philippines.  The video had beautiful scenery and people of the country.  After watching the video, Ms.Magno talked about severe poverty that exists in the Philippines.

 Ms.Magno asked the students, “What would you do if you didn’t have a place to live? What would you do if you didn’t have electricity and lights that are needed when studying?”  Students wrote their answers onto sticky notes and posted them on the whiteboard.  The answers included, “I will study during the day”, “I will go to a restaurant to study, because there I can use their light”, or “I will get up early.”

　Ms.Magno’s question led to a story about a nine-year-old Filipino boy, Daniel Cabrera.  Daniel was recently photographed by a student who happen to passed by when he was studying in the light of a restaurant on the streets in the Philippines.  Since the photo was uploaded online, it has gone viral, leading to a huge number of donations for Daniel and his family to be used for Daniel’s education.  Now Daniel will be able to pursue his dream of becoming a doctor or a police-officer with the funds that the people around have raised.  Ms.Magno emphasized that there are very wealthy people in the Philippines, while there are people who are struggling to make day-to-day living, like Daniel and his family. 

  At the end of the workshop, students were asked five questions:

What did you learn from today’s workshop?, How is Japan different from the Philippines?, What other things would you like to know about the Philippines?, As a global citizen, how can you help other countries?, and What should the Philippines do to eradicate poverty?

  Students were divided into groups and came up with the group answers which was presented in front of the class.

　This workshop had many valuable points, but especially two points are remarkably important: students were able to hear the real-life stories from Ms.Magno who had just left the Philippines, and Ms.Magno clearly showed the country’s serious issues such as the big gap between the poor and the rich. Yet,  despite such difficult situations, Filipinos still manage to “smile” and move forward.