Today,
we presented our Service Learning activity video to the class. It has been 6
weeks from now, but I can still remember the experience and the learning stays
on me forever. To recall, last February 25, we went to CARD-MRI Development
Institute (CMDI) in Bay, Laguna to establish our Honesty Store. To give you an idea of how are service learning experience was, below is our group's final video presentation compiled by our group mate Emmie:
The concept was borrowed from the honesty store in Batanes, where there is only a box for buyers to insert the payment, and there is no guard or cashier looking in the store. There is also no camera, so it will only be the buyer's conscience that’s going to call his/her attention for not paying. It is indeed a test of honesty each time a person buys.
The concept was borrowed from the honesty store in Batanes, where there is only a box for buyers to insert the payment, and there is no guard or cashier looking in the store. There is also no camera, so it will only be the buyer's conscience that’s going to call his/her attention for not paying. It is indeed a test of honesty each time a person buys.
When
we established the honesty store, our main goal is to inspire others to be honest. We want the students to appreciate honesty and make it as a personal value. However, upon interacting with the CARD MRI students, we found out that
they are doing community immersions, and the funds that they’ll be getting from
the honesty store will not be put into their own needs but to the needs of the
community. They will use it to fund their community immersions. Thus, instead
of inspiring, we are actually the ones been inspired.
Until
know, I cannot forget how inspiring these students are. Imagine, those students
came out from poor families, they walk to the school everyday, and they don’t
have that much excess money for themselves, and yet they still chose to help.
They find ways in order to fund their community activities. I just can’t
imagine how selfless they are, because they actually use the income from
honesty for their own needs like books, school supplies, etc… And I think, this
is actually the true meaning of social responsibility. They don’t just help out
of their excess resources, instead they really look for a way to sustain their
community programs despite of the limited resources they have.
Moreover,
they are students. They have lessons, assignments, and other school related
things to do. And actually, as an MBA student, one of the struggles I have is
that I have limited time. It’s because aside from school, I still have a day
job. But upon knowing the students, since they came from poor families, they
have households to do and sometimes they have to help their parents in selling
or doing business. Despite of the school and home responsibilities they have,
they still find time to execute their community activities. For their community
activities, they facilitate feeding programs, read along program for the
children, and seminars for women.
In
class, we are taught by Ms. Pia Manalastas that CSR is not just a short time
charity work; it should be something that is part of the daily operation and
should be sustainable. This is actually what I witnessed in our honesty store.
The profits that the students will get from honesty store will then be used to
fund their community activities, making it a cycle of operation since honesty
store is a sustainable source of funds. The store will be managed by the
students, and in order to make the operation of honesty store sustainable, once
they graduated, it will be passed on to the next batch. Our group share some
techniques on how to manage their inventories and how to promote their store to
other students, so that their store will last long and earn more.
Today that our Business Ethics and CSR class has officially ended, I can say that I
really learned a lot, and my experience with our service learning project is something
that I will value the most. It brought me through a lot of realizations within
me, and on how social responsibility operates in the society. I realized that
as long as there is a strong drive for us to help, we can always find ways on
how to do so.
