Storytelling Outreach to Baranggay Escopa Q.C.

Wikipedia defines corporate social responsibility as a concept whereby organizations consider the interests of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, communities and other stakeholders, as well as the environment. This obligation is seen to extend beyond the statutory obligation to comply with legislation and sees organizations voluntarily taking further steps to improve the quality of life for employees and their families as well as for the local community and society at large.

As part of our ODP training, we were required to involve ourselves in corporate social awareness. we initially chose helping out in a Gawad Kalinga project, however, due to unforseen circumstances, this did not push through. we instead assigned to do a storytelling session with the kids of Barangay Escopa in Quezon City.

We prepared for the event. we bought goodies as gifts and prizes. of course we also bought books for the storytelling itself. the day before, we were busy wrapping up the goodies.

the next day, we were supposed to meet at 7:30 am at the office lobby so we can leave at 8am. however, one of our classmates felt sick that day and woke up late, so we had to wait for her. we left the office at 9am. we took pics while waiting....

no, we're not going to a greenpeace rally. we just chose green as our class color. why? i have no idea! actually i was absent when they took a vote... hehehe...

green looks good on me anyway, don't you think?

the saturday traffic to QC from Makati was light, and we arrived at our destination in no time at all. the day before, we joked that we should be having the storytelling under a mango tree, but our coodinator said no, we will be having it under a bridge. when we arrived, we realized that she was not joking. the venue for our story telling session was under the Katipunan bridge.



the kids were already waiting for us because we were one hour late. there was a baranggay representative who took care of everything from their end. we started with a prayer, then went on with the story telling. our class was grouped in pairs, then assigned a story each. my partner was joy, and our story was Ang Alamat ng Pinya. we agreed to divide the narration duties, while i played the mother and she played Pinang, the little girl. performance level! it was of course a success! the kids seemed to enjoy it.

After the stories, we distributed art supplies to the kids. we gave them the freedom to draw whatever they liked.

there were quite a few budding artists in the group! here's one of our kids, James, proudly showing me his masterpiece.

After the art activities, we played games. one group was in charge of the games. we were happy to note that all the kids participated, and they seemed to really enjoy the prepared games. of course we prepared enough prizes so that every kid went home with something.

Everybody had fun! of course all the shouting and laughter left us hungry. good thing though that the food we ordered from McDonald's arrived just in time. we feasted in McChicken and Coke! yummy! it was touching the way some kids did not eat their food, saying that they will just bring their share home since their family didn't have any food for lunch.... poor kids.

the rest of the kids however, ate their heart out!

by 12:30 we were done. our service brought us back to the office where we changed our clothes (we all smelled!) then crammed ourselves into 2 of our classmates' vehicles and headed off to the Mall of Asia. There we ate at one of the seaside restaurants and sang our hearts out in the videoke. we stayed there until dark.

since i was in a celebratory mood, yes i did sing, i sang 3 songs! yipee! no longer a videoke virgin!



what a day! it was really tiring but definitely worth it. spending the rest of the afternoon with friends was fun! i hope the next time we see each other, we will be as happy...(when we receive the ODP results....waaahhhh! pressure!)