Narrative Essay on the Project by UST Literary Society - Community Development Committee
In the beginning, the difficulty posed by the global pandemic proved to be a greatly significant hurdle to the team. It limited the options we had in terms of pulling off any project with the limited resources we had. However, it was resolved that we would take the opportunity to engage our partner community, because chances are, they too would appreciate any form of help we could strive to impart. And so we begun to plan our project for Juan Luna Elementary School - ALS Department.
Starting from getting sufficient data on what the community needs thereby arranging interview meetings with faculty members of the ALS Department with a series of questions that gives us an overview as to how the community is handling its students, coping with their work, and braving through the pandemic. As such, we identified that are difficulties with regards to learning, English and Mathematics being key problem areas. Moreover, with the government allowing schools to shift to online learning, we were able to infer where else their current troubles were heading. It was at this juncture that we started to narrow down to a course of action that was in the best interest of a the community.
At first we were opting to start a donation drive for them, to purchase books that could reinforce the lessons the students were being taught at school, but this proved to be above the capacity our resources allowed made even more complicated by the pandemic. And so we thought of a way to condense our project to something that would be greatly educational and insightful for the students. This was how we honed in on an online seminar, or what we've come to know as a "webinar." However, we needed to weigh the data we had to properly assess the needs of JLES - ALS' students. Finally, over the review of the interviews from our Community Profiling, we were able to agree, with the help of our Community Development Coordinator and the coordinator from the partner community, that a Job Hunt Career Counseling Webinar would be a great project to suit the unique needs of the students from the Alternative Learning System Department of JLES.
At this juncture, we were able to plan more concretely, and we involved as many of our stakeholders as we could all the way through implementation.
With everything in place, the seminar was pushed through on the 17th of May, 2021. Our speaker, Ma'am Chin Cristobal, elaborating on the tough decisions we'll all make when we go out to find jobs and giving us tips on how to best prepare for it all not only gave the students of the ALS Department an insightful talk but also those of us from LITSOC who worked to implement this webinar.
Towards the end, we were able to learn that job hunting isn't easy, but it shouldn't be that hard as long as we put our best foot forward and equip ourselves to be able to do that.
Looking at this closely, I feel glad this seminar could greatly improve the students of the ALS Department’s will to get that job they really want as the seminar is dedicated to them. It made us feel that we know these students will be able to succeed and overcome their hurdles someday and that gives a huge assurance that their journeys and stories are things we can all look forward too. And to us project managers who are currently studying, this event serves us as a testament and reminder that we can still continue to help even at a time like this.
