順天中学校・高等学校

11/22/2014

On November 22, the 8^th GLAP 1 workshop was held.  For the workshop, Junten invited the CFF (Caring for the Future Foundation Japan) staff, who has a long experience working in the Philippines helping local people, to learn about their experience and to provide students an opportunity to explore what volunteering really is.

At the beginning, students read a fictional story, which was used later for brainstorming.  The story goes: “A Japanese volunteer saw the meals of a Filipino family.  The volunteer thought that the meals are lacking vegetables so she suggested that the family should grow vegetables and eat them, and when there was surplus, she suggested that they should go to the town and sell them”.  The father of the family started growing vegetables, but the farming took more time and physical work than before so the father had to work all the time. Because he was so busy, his personality has changed.  The Japanese volunteer gave a good idea for making money, thus the family was able to buy a new TV and other materials that they had long wanted.  On the other hand, the boy in the family lost time to play with the father whom he loves so much.  Is the family happier now than before?”

After reading the story, students formed groups and did brainstorming.  Students exchanged their thoughts and ideas and discussed them in the groups using  various angles to finally form their own ideas.

In the workshop, what the students repeatedly was asked was, “what is the most important thing to keep in mind when volunteering?”  There may not be one correct answer to this, but the students seemed to have a common idea, – do not be subjective and do not impose your own values, look at and listen to people to help them.

At the end, a university student Mr.Nakamura who has worked as a CFF volunteer in Sual in the Philippines.  Mr.Nakamura helped built stone walls.  Mr.Nakamura said, “I dug wholes, carried heavy stones and hardened cement.  It was hot every day.  When I worked 30 minutes, I got quickly exhausted.  The work didn’t progress fast.  In the first three days, I was thinking “what’s the point of this”?  But one day, local people planed and had a welcome party for us, volunteers from Japan.   People in the village whom we didn’t know even showed up to welcome us.   Then I realized they warmly accepted us regardless who we are.  Since then, I decided to just help them and work hard and I felt my volunteer work was joyful. I wanted to do something for them”.

Finally, Mr.Nakamura sent a strong message to the class, “if you have a desire to help, then take an action.  Then continue the action”.