Our Video of the BSA kids

BSA volunteers

Here's Sir Jon Mannion and Ms. Kat Pauso. They are the NGO coordinators. 

Livelihood

We noticed that most of the livelihood or business that they put up are sari-sari stores in which they sell the basic necessities in their community or the nearby houses. Lola Angelita was one of our interviewee told us that she put up a sari-sari store for her to have hobby and to earn even a small amount of money but some says that it helps them to earn money for their everyday expenses. in my point of view, it is a good idea that they have this kind of business so that they have something to provide for their families.

BSA volunteers

This picture above was taken during the first immersion day of the team in DLS-CSB with their professor Ms. Jennylyn Villena.

Map to Barangay San Antonio

Here is the map on how to go at Barangay San Antonio, Pasig City!

If you are from Manila, you can take LRT or jeepney going to EDSA. Then, you ride on the MRT bound to Shaw Boulevard. When you are already there, you can take a ride on a jeepney going to Pasig, Palengke or you can just walk going to Barangay San Antonio. But we recommend that you take a ride 'cause it's quite far from the MRT Station to Barangay San Antonio.If you see the Red Ribbon, turn left. Then, you will see Mini Stop. You turn right and then, you pass on the first street. Finally, you're there at the Barangay San Antonio, City Hall. The Learning Center is located at the second floor of the building. :))

kids in BSA center

We asked them to create their own Valentine's cards. The center has provided them with coloring materials and we provided them the papers they are going to use. On the picture above, the kids were thinking what to write and how to start their valentines card. :)

The kids were busy making their valentines card while their facilitator Aileen and Steph were watching them. And they are actually shy when they caught us looking at their works.

Here's a boy doing his valentines card seriously and trying his best to accomplish it.

And finally! here were the finished products of the kids! isn't it nice? The kids in BSA really has creative minds. :)

In the other corner (pictures above), Dhanica, Sharmie and Krisha were teaching the kid how to make accessories out of the magazine pages.

Then, here's a little girl learning how to do the beads out of magazine.

and in another corner, there are boys playing monopoly with their facilitator Aileen.

you can see in this picture a boy, he's the banker in the game.

The kids love to make a pose when taking a picture of them. :)

Finally, they are done with their activities so its time for their break or play time. :)

And as you can see with the pictures, kids are enjoying doing things like paper works, alternative accessories, playing board games, and playing educational games on the computer. :) Some games that they are playing is the Book Worm, which is a spelling game. You have to form a word from random letters. Another game is the Memory game; you have to remember where the two identical pictures are placed then once you found it, you click on it. :)

Animoto Test with pics

PSP in the Barangay

A boy plays with his PSP in Malvar

Labels! or Tags

Health and sanitation, housing, work, transportation, entertainment, youth activities, environment, peace and order, gender, jon, test, energy and utilities, 

Gender issues

What an inspiration! :)

We were exploiting the informal settler's area in Barangay San Antonio to be able to witness or see their situation in their area. As we pass through each houses, this old lady caught our attention (See the above picture) while she is busy with her business "sari-sari store". One thing that pops into our mind when we saw her, who are with her to help her? Then, we started to ask her with an interview. 

While we're interviewing her.. (See below picture).

She's Lola Angelita and she's 67 yrs old. Lola Angelita has been living in the area for more than 54 years. She also have her own business, which is a sari-sari store, its maximum income is 1,000 pesos. She have 10 children and all of them have their own family now. Lola Angelita is already old yet, she strives hard for herself and doesn't want to ask anything to her children if she could still manage to work and do something for her to survive anything.

Youth Activities

Past Time (Caught in action!)

While conducting an interview in the area, we heard the teenagers, no more on adults talking about the children's favorite past time place which is the gymnasium. After the children had finished helping in the house chores, they go there to play and have fun by playing there favorite sports. They used to be "magbabarkada" in their childhood. They said that every afternoon between 12-4 they're always there to play with their playmates. They usually play the basketball and sometimes volleyball. They play with each other that will serve as their bonding times with their buddies.

So we thought of visiting the area and fortunately, we spotted them playing basketball. (See the pictures)

We weren't able to capture a nice shot because the building was contradicting the sun's light.

 These are the pictures taken by our group while they are playing basketball.
While taking the shots, there were audiences telling us that they wanted to have them pictured too. But we weren't able to take pictures of them due to dead battery of the camera we we're using.

Luckily, we were able take these pictures after the battery died. :) They were using the whole court to enjoy the game with their buddies. And they were really counting the scores of the 2 teams. They were not fighting in the game, they were more on really enjoying it by laughing at each others joke and etc. They do not actually take the game seriously they take more on bonding and enjoying everyone's company. :)

Whoops! There goes the ball! Counted or not?  Ready for rebound! :)

Transportation

Introducing the E-JEEP! 

The first time we got in Barangay San Antonio we saw 2 E-jeeps that was parked beside the Barangay Hall. We were really shocked and at the same time amazed that Barangay San Antonio have these very environmental friendly vehicles that will help the residence from the air that was polluted by the chemical it brings.

E-jeep is a vehicles that can be used by charging in into a electric socket, using the power from the biodegradable waste. It's like charging your cellphone into the socket. It helps the environment by preventing polluted fumes that causes air pollution.

Environment

A clean environment is a must to have a healthy lifestyle!

In this barangay, the some place has lots trashes but some are also clean. In this picture, we can see that one is clean and the other one is dirty. Well maybe it depends on the person who lives near that place on how they take care of their area. Some areas are clean while others are dirty, that's why most of the people in the community get sick. We should start helping the people in the community to make them live in a more enticing environment. Be the change,start helping now at BSA community located in Pasig City!:)

Housing

A nice shelter is one of the basic needs of a person. 

The houses there are like apartments made for hundreds of people. Some had more than 2 families or more inside a house.Their living is not that easy because they only have small rooms, but they don't have other choice but to stay. As a concerned citizen, shouldn't we be helping our neighbors and the ones who are in deep need? Come and join us at Barangay San Antonio, Pasig City and be part of the volunteer work!

Peace and order

In a barangay, discipline is important to maintain peace and order in the community.
Good thing that Barangay San Antonio had this..

While we're exploring the barangay, we passed by a sign which serve as the rules in their barangay. As said by the people we had interviewed there that the rules are being followed by most of the people.

Children in BSA

Wonderful Children

They're having fun taking pictures. Either a person, place, things or anything! And well, that's a good thing at an early age.  How wonderful it is. Left to right: Johnce, Justin, Allen, 

Jericho, Angelo and Luke having fun with us while we're about to start the tutorial.

On our way to the Internet shop for the activity. There they go again, pose! 

At the back, we're having sort of a meeting on how to start. Oh well, hoping that it'll be great!

Uh-oh! Seems like we had a problem with the memory card reader. The computer couldn't read it. We can't begin because we badly need the pictures for this activity. (20 mins after..)

Finally, we're done with the problem! Here's Raizza, teaching the children on how to upload pictures on the blog and put something about it. Go Raizza! (Don't mind the face .)

Nice! We think that they'd understand Raizza's instructions, or they're just fast learners? Well done kids! Here's a picture of Jericho doing it by himself.

Jericho takes a picture of Lanz taking a picture of Jericho taking a picture (ad nausium) Thanks Sir Paul for the Canon and Jon for the Nikon. I think the Nikon won.

 Chris in the back alley at Luke's House

Bantay Chris in BSA

This is the house of Julius in Malvar Street.  RJ and Chris guide the ISM and GIN visitors around their neighborhood.

Documenting the Barangay

A beautiful pic of Derricks Alley.  Thanks GIN visitors.

Tom's Video of BSJ and BSA

A Tour around Barangay San Antonio

As we arrived in Barangay San Antonio (a local village), we were greeted by the amiable neighbours who lived in the village, but this was not what caught my attention. The first impression of my arrival in Barangay San Antonion was the contrasting view of the modern tower blocks surrounding Barangay San Antonio. I guess for me, this reflects the wide gap of differences between the rich and the poor living in the Philippines. Despite living in such harsh condition, Barangay San Antonio managed to be the richest barangay among all. They are improving and making progresses for their community as a whole. They help out each other by teaching kids in the San Antonio Day Care Center and being firefighters voluntarily. Their station for emergency are tents big enough for the firefighters to fit the equipments they have without much space left for all the firefighters to fit in. They do not have air conditioners in the tents too for the hot weathers in the Philippines. However, all of these will change in just one month, when the station would be finished. By the way our advisers from the Barangay San Antonio talked about it, you can tell how exciting everyone is about having a new and perhaps a permanent emergency station. After this trip, I realized we often forget how lucky we are to be educated. Fifty percent of the delighted children do not have a chance to be educated even when they want to, but this doesn't mean that they are not smart. In fact, they might be smarter than any single one of us. I think it is important for us to often remind ourselves that there are things that we can do to help the others. We can all start by making the first step which is visiting the villages and see what we can do to make a change! :)

CLT Disccusion

Adolescents Interview: On February 19th, 2012, several members from the GIN conference had an in-depth and interesting conversation with a group of kids from San Antonio. We discovered that kids here love to play sports in their free time. Badminton, swimming, volleyball, basketball... you name it! Regardless of age, they also love Hide and Seek and hanging out at the mall. Although San Antonio is not considered the richest part of Manila, kids here feel extremely safe, no matter the time of day. Most of the men here are security guards, and they guard the barangay around the clock. One thing unites the kids here. They love to learn. One thing the kids would love to see happen is being able to learn fine arts and music. Many of them are in the religious choir and have to learn religious music. However, the kids want to learn different genres of music too, such as Pop or Jazz. Most of these kids aspirations include studies in computer or to be computer programmers. Even through the hard life that they went through the dreams of these students can never be extinguished. The kids here want improvements in their lives. They want to have access to the internet in order to have access to educational games, ebooks, and different types of leisure activities. They do a different variety of things for their entertainment. The Philippines is a country that is famous for their singing. The kids here like to sing, they go to karaoke for their luxury. They want their own computers though. It must seem cliche to want computers but these kids are different. Even though they want the computers as part of luxury, they also want them to teach themselves. Most of the games that the kids do are educational, from English to Mathematics to IT. Since the Philippines is so hot, the kids would really appreciate it if they could have AC in the room. They also want improvements in their own houses. Most of the kids live near the baragngay hall but some still live far. They just want a simple thing: cleaner houses. Most of the kids here live in small spaces with more than 3 siblings. Yet, they don't complain about it, they just want a more sanitary place to live in. The kids here also take part in the environment awareness epidemic. They recycle by separating their biodegradable and non-biodegradable things. In conclusion, these students deserve to learn and by donating and volunteering they would achieve what they want to achieve. A better life. Children Interview: Living in a gated community as international students, we are not exposed to many of the realities of life. One of these realities is the harsh living conditions that many individuals all over the world have to endure for all their lives. Today, the GIN delegates travelled to Barangay San Antonio in Pasig City for the International Community Actively Responding to the Environment (ICARE2) program. This activity included working with the local kids enrolled in the school as well as walking through the community that these children live in. This activity allowed us to experience first hand not only the challenges that these kids have to deal with, but also allowed us to reflect oh how we live our lives. The children here are so enthusiastic and joyful. They are happy and cheerful, enjoying everything they do. They immensely enjoy going to school and look forward to learning everyday, particularly enjoying the subjects science, math and the Filipino language.They enjoy bonding, laughing, playing and dancing together, regardless of age and sex.The children here especially love music. From listening to popular songs by Justin Bieber and Chris Brown, to dancing freely to musical beats. They also feel very safe in their surrounding environment because of the twenty four seven patrols and security and also because of the wonderful emergency rescue team.The children here are also very aware of the environmental conditions, thus doing their own part by carrying out the 3 R`s of recycling, reusing, recycling, and reducing paper,plastic bottles, aluminum cans and tin.

GIN delegates interacting with the kids

Some of the GIN delegates stayed at the e-Room and interacted with the kids lounging there. We played monopoly with them and as we attempted to upload some of the photos, we taught how to type quickly using Type Racer. We had great fun, and we were infected by the joy and vibrancy of these children.