順天中学校・高等学校

2014/10/25

The 6^th Workshop was provided by CFF (NPO Caring for the Future Foundation).  Students played quizzes about the history, culture, customs and people of the Philippines.

In the workshop, students have developed more attraction to the Philippines that have both modernized cities such as the capital city Manila and rural areas that are surrounded by nature.  Students were also reminded how serious the country’s poverty is and how closely the problem is linked with the social structure.

People in the Philippines cherish their families.  Children work to make money for their families.  They take over the family business that is collecting and selling garbage. Their parents also collected garbage for living and they didn’t go to school. They pass the same lifestyle on to their children.

The CFF staff Mr.Ishii who has close relationships with the local people and hands-on experience in the Philippines shared his experience.  He taught us that financial helps is a temporary help and is not sufficient to change the situations in the Philippines and we should do what we can and try putting the efforts that only you can offer.

At the end of the class, Mr.Ishii from CFF posed a question to the class, “what would you do if a little child in front of you asked “give me money”.  Would you not help him because his parent may take the money from the child? But if the child didn’t give the money to him, he might be in trouble.  The boy may just want to play with you? There is no right answer to the question.  Just ask yourself”.

Here are some comments from Student Reporters:

“I had a strong image about the Philippines equals to bananas, but today I learned about street children and it saddened me very much” / “The gap between poor and rich is bigger than I have imagined” / “I would like to help them in the way I can”.

There are comments such as:

“The life of street children is very tough and they are poor, but I don’t know what I could do to help”/ “I wondered what we should do for them”.

Students learned that how challenging the issues they are trying to help resolve and there is no right answer.