Red Cross Leadership Training

I started my hibernation in the internet world when I decided to go home—as explained in my previous post. But I thought, I can still write things up even though I’m in a vacation—although posting it will get a little delayed. The sequence of posts will be the things that have happened to me while I’m away and the recent stuffs this November. But I doubt if around 10 people read my blogs. So please bear with me.:p

As though all things were set up for the last semester, I decided to join the Red Cross Leadership Training Program at our school (Oct 19-20, 2009). Morny invited me to join and I said yes. I am somehow hesitant since Techno documents with Rj, Yang2, and Vj were not yet done. So I decided to move my journey back home 5 days later to give way in finishing up with my school stuffs.

For the first day, we tackled about Red Cross’ history, the founders, how it started, its principles and a whole bunch of information. The speakers were Johannes Latras and August Rian Bajenting. I can say that their discussions were very informative and a lot of things were imparted to us.

Because of the said discussion, my eyes were opened to the realities that I never knew before. One of this is the “no ransom policy” of the government concerning individuals abducted by the rebels. All I can say is that: It’s a big lie. *Skipping facts.

The afternoon session was a bit loose and we started to do some activities. One of the activities was for the group to give up certain clothes and things to come up with the required belongings stated in the white board. And these were: 4 pants, 8 t-shirts, 6 mobile phones, 5 watches, 4 shoes and 3 I.D. slings. I gave away my shoes. We all gave up something but the thing was that there were just 6 boys and 9 girls. Girls cannot just strip off their clothes considering the culture here in the Philippines. Girls and some of the boys are conservative so to speak. But we sorted things out and handed over the required stuffs. Some of the boys even gave up their pants along with their shirts.

Collected things

The next step was to come up with the longest tower we could muster. We all had our different views on how to do to make the tower the longest one. Clashes of ideas were very prevalent. It took us around 20 minutes to finish it and by then, our speakers explained the importance of the activity—Volunteerism.

Building a tower; the boys got naked since we won't give up our shirts :P

They wanted to test how far we can give up things just so we can fulfill the said activity. Being part of the Red Cross needs someone with a will to help. As we go along with our discussion, Johannes asked us this perfect question: As a volunteer, am I obliged to do all the Red Cross’ activities? A lot of points were raised. Yes, says one because the “mere fact that you volunteer”, the more is expected from you. And no for the other because" we have a free will to act things as we please." I became more and more confused with each passing minute. At last, it was the speaker’s time to say something. He said that as a volunteer, we are not obliged to do all the Red Cross’ activities because we are only human and also have our limitations. If you said yes to a certain activity, that’s the time that we are obliged to fulfill it. Such is the act of volunteerism.

The people who decided to be with the activity were: Eaque, Cly, Jeff, Darlene, Vanyssa, Moises, Al, Cindy, Gie, Edle, Chris, Miguel, and Rhee. Thanks for sharing your time with me!:D