FGD on Bridging Leadership and Evaluation of Activities

Jun. 4

Focused Group Discussion on Bridging Leadership Framework and Evaluation of Activities

Minutes of the Meeting
4 June 2011 (A.M.)

BEGIN TIME: 9:21 A.M.

Main Groupings:
Peace campers (YSPians 2011)
YSP Campers (Sumping)
“Oldies” (Kukangz)

For the day, there shall be two different activities: the FGD (A.M.) and YSP meeting (P.M.). The
morning session is for preparation and trying to focus on the flow of programs.

Attendees in the morning will undergo a formation session until the succeeding months. They
shall be undertaking the bridging leadership training framework. Some of them will be representing the
YSP this October in Manila for the Tuloy-Tulay program (2nd batch), which is a 2-week program where
the participants undergo bridging leadership concepts (new concepts aside from spiritual and
transformational leadership), focus on bridging leadership (wherein they identify a certain issue and
then focus on the issue).

Main focus this morning: try to evaluate the programs in the past six months.

There will be no prayer for the morning session, because it is a concept/activity in the traditional
leadership framework. The attendees will now separate into their respective groups and try to evaluate
programs.

30-minute evaluation

GTKY:
State your name and answer one of the following questions: Why did you join YSP? What
motivated you to join? What do you want to have/achieve?

Jasper: Joined after becoming a participant in the Youth Summer Peace Camp in 2006.
Kael: Joined because he was bored during the summer of 2008. But why he stayed is another question.
Babert: Should there be a reason?
Matthew: Joined because he was bored during the summer of 2010.
Jhey-are: First because he was the elected president of ZYPO in 2006; But he joined when he was forced
by his school in 2002 because of the fact that he is a great dancer.
Joxy: He feels obligated since it’s his responsibility after being awarded as a YPW in 2011.
Ahmed: Took the opportunity when he was invited to join after attending the peace camp.
Fatty Mae: She was also forced to join. But she enjoyed.
Jap: Joined after learning there was no representation from his school for this year’s camp.
Magz: Invited by his uncle to join the Salam Camp, and he also wants to be active during summer.
Earl: Was a participant before and she observed that they were very happy (their facilitators before)
Yoshi: Has been nagging by Ayeh to join, and he found himself enjoying the experience.
 FGD on Bridging Leadership and Evaluation of Activities
Jun. 4

Gianne: Joined simply because he wants to support the advocacy of the organization and render his
service to the youth.
Loren: Joined because of Toni, who was always talking about YSP. Then she realized that there are things
she could also do.
Marsh: Joined because of Toni. She became interested because according to the stories, it was very self-
enhancing. And another thing, primarily because of what the letter P stands for.
Yas: YSP has been a lot of help to their community in Pasobolong.
Keith: Was recommended to join.
Claire: Encouraged by Babert. Also because of the pressure due to her being a FOZYL awardee. Ergo, she
wants to continue enhancing the leadership skills that she has.
Ayeh: Jealous of Babert and friends during 2008. And since the number of ZYPO members in their school
has been diminishing, he was encouraged by Ms. Tampon to be president for two years.
Nur: Endorsed by Aldrin during the PYLP, and she became a facilitator in the interschool peace camp.
Mujib: Because he wants to learn more things and get to know more people.
Arwald: Maybe it’s really destiny (Siguro tadhana na talaga).
Robert: Because of the abundance of food. Ever since.
Aldrin: Simply because we are the founders.

Aldrin: There are many reasons why we joined the organization, may it be in a shallow or in a
deep sense. Most of us are like Mujib, because we want to learn. And it might root down to friendship
and our advocacy. Other reasons, simply because we are obliged.

“We will now try to understand our personal journey, where we really started. To break the ice,
here is the twist; sit beside someone you don’t know and want to get to know better”.

Ice Breaker

Communication Game (Groups of 3 or 4)

Directions:
Each person will be assigned certain letters from A to C/D.
For three minutes, Person A will be talking about his/her journey towards joining YSP. Person B
will be listening and Persons C/D will be observing.
After three minutes, the process will be repeated, but this time the talker will be Person B;
listener will be Person C; and observer/s will be persons D/A.
The process will be repeated until everybody has had the chance to talk.

Basic rules:
Only the talker will do the talking.
The talker should not stop talking until the three minutes are up.

This is the basic framework of the bridging leaders program.

 FGD on Bridging Leadership and Evaluation of Activities
Jun. 4
 FGD on Bridging Leadership and Evaluation of Activities
Jun. 4

Lecture on the Bridging Leaders programs.

Aldrin: The FGD will focus on programs. Break all barriers between groups. No more veterans, no more
campers, etc. All of us now will be one group called Bridging Leaders. All others like the Sanggunian
Kabataan (SK) will be called fellows. Last year, we focused on AdZU and WMSU. This year we will be
focusing on UZ and ZSCMST.

To practice the BL program, here is the BL framework.

Concept of ownership (Self)

There is a societal divide; an issue we want to address (lack of education, conflict between
religions, etc.).
Stakeholders are people journeying with us as partners.

In July, we’ll come together again and focus on Co-ownership.

Engagement mechanisms: Mr. Cabambang made mention to consider the military in our
activities.
Multi-stakeholder processes: Allows us to go to communities (e.g. your group targets Brgy.
Limaong. How will we involve the entire community?). Even though the program is only
for SK, there is also a need to consider other people. It is no longer “just me”. It is now
ours/us/we. From our personal vision, it will now be the vision of the group. New
relationships and stakeholders means that we will venture again into more partners.

In August/Sept/Oct, we will be venturing in the Co-creation process.

Processing the triad/group activity.

What went easy? What went hard?

 Listen - II  Absorbing
 Talk (personal) - II  Listen
 Observe/absorb - II o Interest
 Recall main ideas o External factors
 Intervene
 Listen - III
 Recall details

Consideration/reflection:
It is not easy to talk to a person in position

Hindering factors why it is not easy to listen:

 Noise  Time consciousness
 Simultaneous na salita  Personal relationship
 Interest (personal level)  Grammar
 Interest (content)  Atmosphere
 Attention span
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Realizations:
As bridging leaders, we do not just gather experiences of people. Communication is also
important. It is allowing other peoples’ experiences to enter the system.
What we need help with is to understand and connect the framework.
YSP should not only gather people, but to also challenge them to do something.

Things that may help the group now:

Having positive mental ability

Explanation of the U-process.

Assessment and evaluation of YSPians 2011

Presenters: Joxy and Ahmed

Importance:
 Avenue to develop and discern passion and goals as peace advocates.
“We have thought of what we want to achieve, and come up with action plans for the
future that will not only help us, but the community us well.”
 Enabled us to meet and accept new friends from different religious beliefs and traditions.
“Even though we are all different, we still convene to have a common goal and come up
with action plans.”
 Widen knowledge on peace and solidarity.
“During the camp, we have very minimal ideas and understanding about the topic, but
we made it through learning new things not only from the speakers and facilitators, but
from our co-participants as well.”

Hindrances:
 Campers’ difference in attitudes and personality.
“I count not care less about race, religion, etc. but some campers do not mingle with
others.”
 Most participants do not participate in sharing activities
“It may be because they are just shy.”

Things to improve:
 Food (not enough to satisfy hunger)
 Participants (The next batch of participants should be more open, not just settling for
introduction.)
 Longer duration of the camp (“if possible, it should be a month-long. We will just wash our
clothes!”)
 Extension of curfew hours (“Because during the last night, we campers decided to get together
but the time wasn’t enough because we were told to go to our rooms already.”)
 Team building activities (“We want more.”)
 FGD on Bridging Leadership and Evaluation of Activities
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Assesment and evaluation of Sumping

Presenters: Nur and Gianne

Strengths:
 Communication skills of the facilitators and participants
 Teamwork and flexibility (“On the facilitators’ level, it was very good because they are capable
of doing many tasks even though they don’t specialize in that work.”)
 Bonding
 Enjoyable
 Sense of volunteerism

Weakness:
 Listening (“Every little thing matters a lot. We fail to see difficulties.”)
 Lack of punctuality
 Lack of energy
 Insensitivity
 Bonding
 Hesitance (“When a participant shows dominance, other people feel small and inadept (e.g. ‘I
don’t want to speak anymore because he/she iis very fluent in speking English.’”)
 Technical difficulties
 Dominance (“Some of the other participants want to be outspoken and they tend to speak a lot
without knowing they’re already being insensitive. They tend to overshadow people even
though other people also want to have the chance to talk and speak up.”)

Striking moments:
 Realizations after every session (“We can see how receptive the participants were to the
activities presented to them.”)
 Shared experiences (“Each of us have a lot of experiences, and we must share them to others.”)
 Counterweighing of situations (“We should first analyze and balance the situation because many
don’t see the consequences of each choice.”)
 Solidarity meal
 Symbolic feedbacking
 Peace trek

Assesment and evaluation of Kukangs

Presenters: Babert, Matthew, Kael, Jhey-are, Jasper

Things to ponder on and be resolved:

 Issue on the position of the youth coordinator
 Updates on the different houses (“One week before the camp, there are no more updates. The
houses seemed like they evaporated into thin air like bubbles.”)
 Division of YSP: Concern regarding the Conveners, YPW, Yuppies, and Community-based
 Relationship between volunteers (“Although relationships are ok after the camp, because of
being too much bonded, we tend to forget we have a bigger bond.”)
 Love life (“Try to handle it very well that it will not affect the organization.”)
 COP-Kawit (“No evaluation yet. Those who joined still did not assess.”)
 Recollection (Claret)
 Christmas party
 FGD on Bridging Leadership and Evaluation of Activities
Jun. 4

 PAZ-Salamat
 Sportsfest (“The big question after the SF: Now what?”)
 Peace camp and YSP camp
 Documentation (“There is a need to formalize things already.”)
 Pax Christi: Kael (Sharing of experience)
 Tawi-tawi experience: Jhey-are (Sharing
 Peace weavers and GCCPBA
 Usage of YSP room (“There is a need for a place where we can convene, and as we have
observed, the office is very messy.”)
 Where are the other YSP volunteers? (“Some people get out of the picture because they are
hesitant. They have no more comfort zones because the people they are accustomed to dealing
with are alrealy also inactive. We need to pose ourselves a challenge, that is to show them that
nothing has changed, only added.”)
 YSP Facebook fanpage (“There is only one official page. Join.”)
 Income Generating Projects
 YSP Meeting this afternoon!
 COPeration Shoebox (“It was an initial start for the Kalinaw house that we have an OS. Since we
have adopted elementary schools, let us adopt high schools as well. Let us try to make
simultaneous these two activities.”)
 Personal interest and hidden desires (“Our interest is hopefully pure and not just for the award.
You started as a volunteer, do things as a volunteer, and keep your feet on the ground.”)
 Future engagements: Orgs, etc. (“Try to link them to YSP.”)
 Sentiments (“They should already be disclosed.”)
 Commitment!

Leveling-off

For the campers:

You might be hearing words / issues that are strange or new to you. Just allow yourself to see
the bigger picture.
For those involved in some issues
There is another side of the picture. There is room for clarification and we can think of better
approaches to handling situations.

Aldrin: We are now entering the topic of societal divides. Why are there programs like these? What are
their purposes? Why are we doing these things?

There is this thing we call “advocacy”, and there are different approaches to handling different
programs.

What is this societal divide? It’s a divide that has something to do with the bigger picture of the
society. We have been doing so many programs in the past many years.

“When we first met, I had no idea you would be important to me.”

 FGD on Bridging Leadership and Evaluation of Activities
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In a bigger picture, we want to approach the issues on conflict and peace building. And since we
might be focusing on different issues, we tend to forget points for celebration.

YSP, aside from being one organization, is also a network of different organizations.

Lecture by Aldrin

Manifestation

It has been the culture of volunteers to only be active and extend their help, time and efforts
during the peace camps and thw Mindanao week of Peace celebrations. Seeing the idle behavior of
volunteers throughout the year, the group convened and decided that there should be a youth group
that is similar to IRSMP. “Kung kaya ng mga matatanda, kaya rin ng mga bata” (If the elders can do it,
the youth can too.) We were very ambitious, and it continued until we were recognized during the PAZ-
Salamat.

You may come and you may go, but you will always be a part of YSP. OUR CHALLENGE at this
time is not to make this a tradition. You may come and go and come and go until you may ask yourself
“Where am I?” We don’t want that.

We always want to see us move our frontiers and wanting to do advocacies into the culture of
peace. We are a family. It should not be only you or only us. Everybody should be involved.

END TIME: 2:14 P.M.

Recorded, edited, and presented by:

Jasper James Pasion

YSP Volunteer