Sunday, June 26, 2011

"Bayanihan" for the New Study Center

Ivar, Trond and Alex invested time and efforts to unite with the community through series of workshops. And I am grateful and honored to be with them in facilitating every workshop. The process of making the community connected to the project was quite hard and challenging but we made it through by so transparent in our passion.

I personally saw and felt the "Bayanihan" spirit in the hearts of the community that it drives me to put it into words through a poem.

The Community


Bayanihan means communal unity
The spirit of oneness, participation and cooperation
Has brought us together as community
To achieve one goal and aspiration


The community, the people

Each of us has special role to play
Scholars, the dreamers

Mothers, the way to the children’s dream
Fathers, the dream builders



The Scholars


The scholars, boys and girls
Shared their gift of hope and inspiration
Every little dream and wishes
Bring us closer to our imagination.

Their mother’s love and care
Has brought peace and harmony
They keep the flame burni ng within our hearts
That clears the path towards their children’s dream.



The Mothers

The father’s commitment and strength
We stand together as one
From the beginning to the end
They will finish the race to achieve their children’s dream


The fear of man will take us far
The night may set us apart
We may be shaken and stumble

But the power of the children's dream persevere us.



The Father
s

The spirit of ‘I can’

Brings more motivation in all of us
The scholars, mothers and fathers
Has discovered that ‘the
y can’

Our volunteers Ivar, Trond and Alex
Teach us lessons we must learn
To reach for our own star

To realize the children’s dream



Ivar, Trond and Alex

Together we will build
The New Study Center
The Children’s Dream
The Community
With unity and love.



The Community Work



The Output of the Community

Streetlight would like to convey our gratitude to Ivar, Trond and Alex. Thank you for bringing life to the community; you give more hope to the children’s dream; you empower the mothers to realize the children’s dreams and make the fathers true dream builders.

-nerren-

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Updating this blog... MISSING THE THREE "KUYAS"

Hi everyone Nerren here of Streetlight. It is my pleasure to update this blog! From this time on you can hear again the process of making the New Study Center. We at Streetlight are honored to continue the beautiful project that started by the three young enthusiastic, powerful, and passionate architecture students. The concept behind the project was to involve everyone at Streetlight on the process of making the building. They brought back one good attitude of Filipinos, ‘The Bayanihan System’ in the process of making the new study center and it remains in the hearts of the community until this time. “Bayanihan” refers to a spirit of communal unity or effort to achieve a particular objective.

It is quite sad that Ivar, Trond and Alex are no longer with us now that we started again the construction of the building. They are truly missed and that we could only wish they can come back to work and finished the project with the community.

In their three months stay at Streetlight, Ivar, Trond and Alex work together with the community that they became more connected to know each other well. These three young men willingness to help and the community’s eagerness to be part of the project has built a beautiful friendship and respect between them. They work together with fun and enthusiasm leading towards their goal.

Way back December 11, 2011, the day that the community prepared a heartfelt farewell party for the Three Kuyas. The community spent a week time of planning and preparation to make the day special for them, and a day to express the community’s deepest gratitude. They say a beautiful message that captured their heart.

Message from the Scholars

Dear Kuya Alex, Kuya Ivar and Kuya Trond

Good Day!

After all the past years, we thought that our lives will be nonsense because of the problems we are suffering every day. We thought that our future will never be changed.

But when the time came and God sent you here in Streetlight Philippines, that’s the time we know that life is very important. And because of that thing, now we know we can achieve our goals.

It is because of you Kuya Alex, Kuya Ivar and Kuya Tornd. Thanks for being there to us. Because of all the efforts you’ve shown us, we can now face tomorrow & say “we can achieve anything”.

Thank you also for giving our parents a part in this project. Without the “New Study Center”, we can’t say to our parents that we love them and without the activities we have in the past few weeks, we don’t know that our parents have the strength to do this.

And now that this is the time you are going to return back to your country, we will miss you all and those memories you shared to us will surely be useful as we grow.

Thank you so much and we hope that you never forget us.


Message from the Parents

Good Afternoon to Everyone!

In behalf of all the mothers in Streetlight, we would like to express out heartfelt Thanks to our volunteers who came to the Philippines just to share their blessings with us. We are very lucky because they choose us. Thank you sir for the project that you are making for our “New Study Center’ building, this is a wonderful gift that you have given to all our scholars here. We the mother’s are happy enough viewing the brighter future of our children.

And thank you also because this is the first time that the Norwegian volunteers prepared foods for the mothers for their workshop activity. You shared with us your Norwegian pancakes and pasta so good to taste, this is most memorable moment for us that we can never forget. All of you guys are not hard to please. You are also great!

We won’t forget you as long as the Study Center Building is standing where it is now.

Again Thank You Very Much!


The beautiful story of the New Study Center will remains in our hearts and it will always reminds us of the great job you did for everyone at Streetlight.


WE MISS ALL OF YOU!


-nerren-