by Ian Naldo,   CSRSME Asia/NYSL

United we stand, united we envisioned great things to come, and united we will continue the learning journey. Today we will plant the seed of our hope and tomorrow we will see a better Philippines.

Our vision has led us to this point – that is, the conduct of the Bayanihan Youth Camp.  We had taken our little steps.  All we had to do is to put our ideas into action. Our actions revolutionized us and gave us the privilege of being one of the few individuals in the country who advance Solidarity Economy.

We also had to say “I, myself, will do it”.  I will be the first to do something about my vision for my country, by practicing social responsibility to my organization and community, by inspiring the lives of others, by sharing them the love of God, and by being an active member of the CSRSME Asia think tank group. We have to be our own practitioner of our vision and mission. We need commitment to see our vision through for our beloved country.

Along the way we had doubts and fears in performing our responsibilities and responding to the needs of the people. But we realized that it is our duty to motivate our generation to rise up and build God’s Kingdom, the economy, the nation.

With limited resources we will prove that our vision and dreams will ascend to the heights of heavens. We will defy the rule of the old economy. We will take a stand for change to take place in this country and for the benefit of its people.

by Lawrence Alfred Mercene

People often recognize the things that are “invisible” in their sight or the things that they cannot perceive in reality that in turn affects the movement and of mobilizing their goal.  It often takes a crucial decision whether they will be trapped by those “enemies” or move on to their vision. According to surveys, large number of people often thinks the “impossible” things that might happen in their life, they habitually treat these things and negative thoughts as fear and interference to their goal-resulting to procrastination of their mental progress as well as their life.

Most highly progressive countries believe in the power of progressive learning (e.g. Japan, USA, etc.) It is a cure indeed for an individual suffering from lack of ideologies to have a positive mind set and an expanding goal when it comes to learning. It is a natural fact that the human mind usually extracts and develops from its innate knowledge. “We are responsible enough to control our thinking when it comes to our mental progress.”

The idea about “the enemy is out there” usually occurs as a result of bombardment of massive ideas and negative perceived stimulus of our imaginative mind.

If we would trace the origin of this type of learning disability, we will encounter the “FEAR” that brought up lack of confidence to an individual. As a vision killer, fear would emphasize the drought of ideas and the interruption of production of subsequent goals.

We need to keep in tact to the idea that a learning journey is one that an individual learns, experiments, adapts, risks, nurtures, innovates new ideas and grows.

Know your enemy, annihilate fear!

We are a Washington State approved non-profit corporation that helps build the leadership and entrepreneurial capabilities of indigent or needy households in developing or less developed countries, especially the youth of those households.

We develop the self-help capacity of entrepreneurs of indigent or needy individuals through the provision of scholarship grants for training/education as well as technical and financial support for enterprise development.

On its first year of operations (2006), the Foundation provided charitable grants to one hundred thirty two (132) needy individuals, majority of them in their young teens or twenties in the Philippines, many of whom are out-of-school youth.

Our ongoing project in the Philippines, Bayanihan Savings Program, carried out by our partner organization National Youth for Servant Leadership (NYSL), organizes youth in academes, communities, churches, as well as out-of-school youth into Bayanihan Centers which inculcate leadership and entrepreneurial capabilities among its members. As of the end of 2008, NYSL has established 15 Bayanihan Centers with members ranging from 15 to 30 individuals per Center.

2009 and beyond: The Foundation will undertake two Bayanihan Youth Camps in 2009 to train leaders of Bayanihan Centers in organizing and conducting the Building Shared Vision (BSV) Learning Journey. Each Bayanihan Youth Camp will accommodate about 50 trainee-leaders.  The trainee-leaders will be deployed to various Bayanihan Centers to help in their institutional capacity building and outreach expansion.  With the equipping of Bayanihan Center leaders, NYSL projects the number of Bayanihan Centers to be established will double next year, 2010.

The nurturing of an enterprise is an ongoing concern, hence the Foundation has taken steps to make its development support more sustainable.  It has set up the OEWF Development Fund to channel institutional capacity building support to Bayanihan Centers including seed capital grants.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite