For two years and running in the company I currently work for, we are required to allot four hours of company time
(half of a workday) and four hours of our personal time
(either we sacrifice part of a weekend or file a half-day vacation leave during a workweek) to extend help to the underprivileged. Last year, 99% of our total company headcount
(of about 800) went in groups to various
Gawad Kalinga communities around the country to teach children in their makeshift schools. This year, for want to explore other areas where our help may be equally needed, it's going to be either
CRIBS Philippines or
Kythe Foundation.
It is one thing to be willing to help and another to have the heart to want to deliver the "service" well. I have long realized that I'm not cut as a teacher because I have very little patience around kids in that I easily get annoyed when they randomly move about, cry for no apparent reason, and, most especially, they take on a particular smell after being active all day. And they can't talk LOLCAT. And they're needy, clingy, and immature
(hmmm, this sounds soooo familiar. TOO familiar. *strokes Photoshoped beard on avatar. OH! I was describing an adult, sry.). In a nutshell, if you know you're not cut for teaching, do other things to make yourself more useful like contribute food, prepare the snack area, coordinate with the agencies, clean the site's perimeter, or re-paint the school's existing mural
(only when they ask you to). Doing so will do the kids a big favor.
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