Pinoy Kasi -- Ordinary people doing extraordinary things (December 30, 2003)

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30 December 2003

Ordinary people doing extraordinary things

WHAT do you think of when you hear the word volunteer? Most probably students cleaning streets or planting ipil-ipil. Others will think of medical missions. Or of Peace Corps volunteers.

And your feelings about volunteer work? I suspect generally Filipinos are nonchalant. At best, "Oh, that's fine, but I don't have the time." Others will be more cynical, "Don't these people have anything better to do? They probably couldn't find a decent job." I know that even schools find the "required" volunteer programs, such as the community service substitute for ROTC, a burden.

It was Dr. Grace Aguiling Dalisay who reminded me that December is National Volunteer Month. Grace is with the psychology department at UP Diliman and has been coordinating a Social Science and Volunteerism program that has, among other tasks, been trying to link up different volunteer organizations nationwide through a network called Voice (Volunteers Organizations Information Coordination and Exchange Network).

Grace also gave me some ideas for this column, mainly the need to dispel misconceptions about volunteerism, which we should differentiate from "volunteer work" with all its connotations of school requirements.

Volunteerism is a philosophy, the idea that we should share time, knowledge, and skills without financial considerations and on our own volition. It's not something new. We do this all the time within our families, like offering to baby-sit or to take care of a sick relative. Such offers of help are most appreciated when they're done spontaneously, from the heart, the Tagalog word "kusa" summarizing the spirit of this giving.

Some of us volunteer time for our communities as well, helping to coordinate different activities for our barangay (village) or subdivision. This volunteer mutual help spirit is still strong in many rural areas, best captured by the notion of bayanihan(community spirit).

Sometimes we go beyond our families and communities. With Rizal Day coming up tomorrow, we shouldn't forget that Rizal volunteered his time as well for community service during his exile in Dapitan.

Yet it is this kind of volunteer outreach work that often meets with opposition. I remember in my own youth, when I'd ask my parents for permission to go out for rural volunteer work, they'd grumble, "Charity begins at home. Why don't you clean up your room first?"

I persisted, and talked about the work and what I saw in the communities to clarify that volunteerism is not dole-out "charity work." Much of volunteerism today is oriented toward helping people to help themselves, mainly with education programs such as adult literacy, and with community development projects, from organic farming to utilizing rainwater.

Volunteerism becomes even more important as the country copes with many crises. My pitch for volunteerism is that it is an essential part of citizenship. We have no right to complain about government unless we volunteer to help change the situation by helping people to help themselves.

Volunteerism can transform people. One of Ces Drilon's talk shows recently featured guests from a range of groups doing volunteer work. Among them was a guest from the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp., which supports their staff doing volunteer work. These corporations know that volunteer work makes for good public relations, but more importantly, it becomes part of human resource development.

I'd say my own summer volunteer stints back in college gave me many skills which I would never have picked up in the classroom. You learn to listen, realizing early enough that the people we're supposed to be helping already know what the solutions are, and just need to be heard. You learn to be observant, to tap whatever is available in resource-scarce situations. Some day I'll write about how our student volunteer team once operated on a carabao, without general anesthesia, without dextrose. (It lived many more years because of, or maybe in spite of, that amazing surgery.)

You learn patience and forbearance, to transcend the differences of language, ethnicity, class within a volunteer team and with the community. I was fortunate (and, I'd like to think, my students were, too) that I picked up my teaching skills during my volunteer stints. When you are able to explain something like tuberculosis (with all its complex variations, such as primary complex and drug-resistant strains) to adults who've reached only second or third grade, you're pretty much ready to tackle just about any teaching challenge.

In a nutshell, volunteerism teaches us that we don't have to be a Mother Teresa and Albert Schweitzer to make a difference. Volunteerism is, and I'm paraphrasing Ces Drilon, ordinary people learning they can do extraordinary things.

So, you may be thinking, go off and volunteer. Ah, but there's a catch here. Volunteers need support, too. You'll find most volunteers actually come from low- and middle-income backgrounds and need support for board and lodging, for transportation, for supplies. Rina Jimenez-David wrote about "remit cards" the other day, greeting cards that incorporate donations to volunteer organizations.

In 2004, you're going to hear more about volunteer organizations, and how you might pitch in. Meantime, I'm just going to ask that you have an open mind, be more supportive of your own kids when they go off to volunteer. Never mind their messy rooms. Mine still is, filled with exams and term papers to correct, books, clipped articles and notes with ideas for classes--and columns. I wouldn't be doing all this, and loving it, if it hadn't been for those volunteered summers and semestral breaks.