Wednesday, November 15, 2006 STC reaches out to poor in 5 communities
Reaching out to the poor is one of the main goals of every school.
Exposures and immersions of students to remote places help them realize the real condition of our country.
Saint Theresa’s College (STC)-Cebu has its Community Involvement Program (CIP), an expression of the school’s missionary spirit as inspired by Mother Marie Louise de Meester, its patroness.
The program nurtures the service orientation of the students and raises the level of consciousness and commitment of the entire school community to reach out to the people.
CIP is a partnership of the school and communities having different activities that are based on their common concerns.
Leslie Comiso, one of the active CIP social workers in STC and works in the college department, said that CIP started as an outreach program by the Immaculate Heart of Mary sisters during the 1980s.
Partners
They wanted to help the women, youth, children and the environment.
The school adopted five partner communities—Sawang Calero, Ermita, Pasil, Lorega and Sitio Kawayan.
Sitio Kawayan is STC’s partner for 25 years already, making it its oldest partner community.
The adopted communities are the areas within Cebu City where a lot of persons are in need of help.
One of the missions of STC is to make its students socially aware.
The school believes that the students can share their knowledge to the partner communities and can learn from them as well.
STC considers each person to have different levels of readiness for involvement, and as the individual undergoes different experiences, these can help deepen the commitment for involvement.
The college department has decided to group students according to their courses so they could concentrate on their field.
Field
Mass Communications students are into theater workshops so they can train the youth about basic acting and performing.
Commerce and accountancy students can teach the mothers how to start businesses so they could earn a living.
Psychology students can practice their skills in counseling while educators can conduct tutorials with the children and out-of-school youths.
Carmela de Guzman, a fourth year Mass Communications student, said “CIP helps me a lot to know the situation around us and to socialize with the mar-ginalized people. It is a very good way of molding me as a Mass communications student and an experience to treasure.”
CIP’s goal is inspired by the school’s mission-vision, which is to develop and to raise the level of commitment of Theresians for the community. Gwenmarie Fatima G. Reyes, St. Theresa’s College
