On December 27, 2016, student leaders from the Toronto Catholic District School Board embarked on a life-changing journey.
The group, composed of 23 students, four teachers and one adult volunteer from the Toronto Catholic District School Board, and who call themselves Team #PH2016, left their families and boarded a plane to Manila to put their faith into action by serving the poor through CFC ANCOP.
Aside from their personal effects, each member of the group carried a second luggage filled with as many donated goods as they were able to accumulate. The goods were to be distributed to the five AnCOP villages, one orphanage and one elementary school they were scheduled to visit.
The first stop after the airport was a visit to Barangay Don Galo elementary School to play with the kids and drop off donations in the form of school supplies. Then they were off to last year’s build site, Sitio Masagana in Quezon City.
Their next few days were filled with visits to other sites, including to the mountainous area of San Mateo to visit AnCOP village – Our Lady of Banneux, the 2013-14 build site of AKC – ANCOP Kapatid Community, a feeding center in Payatas, Quezon City, the ANCOP AVANAI community in Visayas Avenue in Quezon City, and an ANCOP community in Tarlac.
But it wasn’t all immersion work for Team#PH2016. On new Year’s eve, the students took a tour of the capital city of Manila and celebrated the countdown to the new Year at the Mall of Asia.
They also appeared on the Good Morning Pilipinas morning show, sharing with the hosts their joy and excitement at being part of this mission team.
They had the opportunity to visit the homes of some of the kids they played with at the feeding center in Payatas. The team was amazed that despite the living conditions of the children, which is a far cry from their experience back home in Canada, the students realized that the people are happy. As some of them later shared, they realized that it is not material things that make people happy, but rather family, relationships, and community.
To show that the Philippines has another face, the hosts took the student volunteers to visit the city of Makati. They marveled that Payatas and Makati are drastically different. The highlight of their Makati visit was a tour of the American War Heroes Memorial, where they had a debriefing and discussed the contrast between the haves and have-nots.
As of this writing, the volunteers are preparing to leave. But for all of them, parting is indeed such sweet sorrow. Tears were already shed each time they had to leave a site.
According to the students, the mission trip allowed them to experience a whole gamut of emotions from happiness at playing with the kids at the feeding center, to sadness at leaving them behind knowing that they would probably never see them again, to joy at reconnecting with them in their community, to depression at seeing the living conditions in the surround areas, to motivation as they became aware of poverty outside of their normal lives, and desire to help and give back.
All of the students agreed that now that they know what poverty exists beyond what they normally see, they will never be able to ignore those less fortunate than themselves. And as with the previous batches of students who have come to Manila for this unique experience, the lives of the students of Team #PH2016 will never be the same. (Michael Consul)