A Summer of Camaraderie, Development Work and Writing Deadlines

In the spirit of promoting volunteerism among the youth, CODE-NGO held its first Young Writers’ Summer Camp with the theme “Volunteerism towards Excellence” on April 22 to May 4, 2013. The program was geared for young volunteers like us who are interested to learn more about research and writing in the context of social development work. Fourteen (14) volunteer writers from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao were chosen to join the two-week summer camp.

The summer camp provided opportunites for us volunteers to build our writing and research abilities through exposure and hand-ons experience; and instilled positive attitude, heightened motivation and developed team work and good collaboration skills towards becoming committed volunteers for social development.  

The camp started with a three-day workshop from April 22 to 24 held at the Partnership Center of PHILDHRRA, Loyola Heights, Quezon City that commenced with Mr. Sixto Donato Macasaet, Executive Director of CODE-NGO, giving an overview of CODE-NGO and civil society organizations (CSOs) working towards development. The orientation was followed by a series of writeshops. Professor Jay Yacat from the University of the Philippines – Diliman jumpstarted the writeshop by discussing the importance of documenting good practices in development work.

The next day, Ms. Tina Arceo-Dumlao of Philippine Daily Inquirer and Mr. Rody de Vera of the “Bayan Ko” series delivered a back-to-back session on journalistic writing and creative writing, respectively. For the evening session, Mr. Jeff Crisostomo from the Office of Hon. Erin Tanada gave some tips on how to create successful publicity materials for campaigning via social media. And on the last day, Mr. Al Alegre of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) provided a brief backgrounder on the history and progress of social media, while Mr. Zak Yuson and Ms. Bon Cabiles, both from Rappler, talked about the current trends in citizen journalism.

The organizers also arranged for socials in-between sessions to foster camaraderie among the volunteers. Games and other activities were conducted to give volunteers the chance to know more about each other’s interests and personal advocacies. Before the end of the 3-day workshop, the deployment arrangements were finalized together with the volunteers. On April 29 to May 3, we all journeyed to our respective deployment areas — Manila, Malabon, Laguna, Benguet, Albay, Sorsogon, Antique and Davao. Each of us took the opportunity to meet our assigned NGO mentors, their beneficiaries, observe and discern good practices of their respective programs. We were welcomed by our host families and were able to travel around the community. After 5 days of immersing in the local culture, of overcoming language barriers and trying new things, we successfully returned home with newfound learnings.

The Young Writers’ Summer Camp concluded with a short debriefing session last May 5 where we shared with enthusiasm the many successful and inspiring stories we had witnessed. Each of us created feature articles in order to shine light to the NGO’s unique contribution to society, how they empower the poor and their unique efforts in advocating for good governance.

All in all, the volunteer writers believe that the Camp had created a positive impact on our self-growth, our appreciation of development work and our desire to serve our country – By Georgia Bongocan and Alexandra Suplido, 20 years old, CODE-NGO Volunteer Writers