Monday, May 22, 2006
Gulle: "Summerkadahan" Habitat style
By Inocentes A. Gulle
Your Business is Our Business
SUMMERKADAHAN, which I suppose, is a combination of the words summer, meaning no school and barkadahan, meaning fellowship.
The local government organized the project, supposedly to foster friendly interrelationship among the youths of the city by way of sports.
It's also supposed to keep them busy, away from drugs, petty crimes and all kinds of mischief restive youngsters are prone to when they have nothing much to do.
This kind of project has been done every summer, by different labels, since several years back, maybe since the inception of the much-ballyhooed Sangguniang Kabataan (SK).
Looking back now, it seems that all their efforts were concentrated on inter-barangay basketball tournaments and almost nothing else. Considering the huge amount of funds the local government allocates every year, nothing much could be seen in terms of youth development, commensurate to the amount spent.
It is even possible some of the funds end up in the pockets of some crooked tournament officials. What of overpricing of equipment and manufactured miscellaneous expenses? It's been done before! I know because when I ran a barangay Children's Baseball project a few years ago, I was asked by an SK barangay kagawad (village councilman) to sign a voucher for purchase of balls and bats at prices 25 to 40 percent over the going rates at the time.
The money would come from the CDF of then Kagawad Alice Posadas, which she allocated for that specific purpose. I could not get myself to partake of a clear padding by way overpricing of equipment to be acquired, and such kind of indiscretion. I think that spelled the end of that barangay's Children's Baseball project. (There's no point naming the barangay and the SK member, for the sake delicadeza.)
The Habitat Community Association (CA) at Mabuhay, General Santos City, has launched its own youth project this summer, the Kiddies Baseball Summer Camp.
With just a few pesos from the CA for snacks for the participating kids and coaches, with their own voluntary labor to prepare the grounds and a few hand-me-down equipments and balls donated by friends from abroad, it is now going full blast. Here, kids are initiated to baseball, a sport strange to most of them since they see almost nothing else but basketball.
In between field training, when the sun gets too hot, the kids are brought to some shade and taught the fine points on citizenship, introduced to moral values and spiritual up-lift, by their older counterparts in a Kuya-Ate relationship ("Big Brother or Big Sister" type of thing), almost like the Boy Scout format.
It is surprising to note how kids 7 to 12 take to baseball, like ants to spilt molasses. Not minding the bruises, aches and a few black eyes that usually go with the sport, they would go at it like there is no tomorrow.
Even the bigger guys doing the usual basketball scrimmage at the nearby court would abandon their game and converge at the makeshift ball field to kibitz, to the consternation of the coaches.
The usual taksi and cara-y-cruz, petty gambling kids do, a kind of coin-tossing game, is practically gone now. By the encouraging response the community youngsters are showing, it doubtlessly would become a regular feature in this place every summer from now on.
It could even be replicated later in other Habitat areas in Sosksargen, if not Mindanao, depending on the availability of logistics and the outlook of the villagers.
The Habitat village is the home (mostly) of the poorest segment of the inhabitants of the city, yet they spend time and effort to address the needs of their children. This is probably true when circumstances make people with common needs and aspirations, realize the necessity to bind together to achieve their immediate goals without waiting for government help, slow as they are in coming.
It only indicates that poor as they are, they see the need to develop their young into better citizens, conscious of their obligations to their community, more adjusted to interrelationship among their peers and hopefully, become solid, upright adults, perhaps better leaders than the common run of politicians today, who are preoccupied with dirty politicking. This kind of relationship is seldom seen in more affluent subdivisions here, where the residents hide behind high concrete fences, inside their own private worlds.
As we now see, this "summerkadahan" Habitat style is not typified by the perennial cheating that often characterizes the city's Summerkadahan, which, instead of promoting camaraderie, it even brings about animosity. Maybe it's because the main motivation of the participants in the latter, and probably some of the personnel running it, is the prize money. ("The love of money is the root of all evils.")
Perhaps, it's time the city re-study its approach to this kind of project. Maybe it would produce better results if the promoters focus on the younger age group. Although that would need more patience and prudence than handling older ones, but children are more receptive and more apt to keep the good traits they learned permanently. Maybe that way the money would produce better results and maybe we can produce better citizens too. Is there not a saying that goes, "Start them young?"
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(May 22, 2006 issue)
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