EIESL in Manila

By Chaya Go

In the summer of 2011, EIESL went to Manila, Philippines!

In partnership with IAVE Philippines, I and Ricardo Segovia organised a two-day workshop entitled “In the Name of ‘Helping'” hosted in the College of Saint Benilde. Educators from local high schools and universities who work in implementing the National Service Training Programme (NSTP), a nationwide promotion of volunteerism among Filipino youth, were invited to participate. They came to learn about EIESL’s work in UBC, and together we explored the six learning themes to brainstorm on how these can be incorporated into their work with their students.

Many of the activities we designed for this workshop were inspired by EIESL’s Global Praxis Workshops. Ricardo and I selected images, questions and quotations to display for an “Art Walk” wherein participants were given time to view the visuals and write their reflections and responses to them. Many of the teachers requested for these images to be shared online so they can revisit them even after the workshop. One of our participants has written to tell us that he has now made his own “Art Walk” too to guide his grade school students’ reflections on volunteerism! As a Filipina, I have helped put these visuals together knowing that these speak to the work of Filipino educators and volunteers –but I share these with everyone, knowing we can all find ourselves in these photographs.