PREVIOUSLY, ATENEANS only had three options to choose from to fulfill the required National Service Training Program (NSTP). These include the Reserved Officer’s Training Corps, the Literacy Training Service (LTS), and the Civic Welfare Training Service (CWTS).
This year, however, the Office for Social Concern and Involvement (OSCI) organized a new program called Reaching Out for Opportunities to Serve (Roots).
Roots will serve as the student arm of OSCI in engaging students in the advocacies of the Ateneo community.
Former Vice President (VP) Assunta Cuyegkeng formulated this program to be the framework of the students and even the graduates to become “life-long learners” and “hero-servants”.
“[Roots was formed] to fit another suggested format or framework of Dr. Cuyegkeng, when she was still effective as VP. [Students are] expected to help OSCI, to deliver our activities, to implement and evaluate our activities,” said Project Head Kim Cholo Torres in a mix of English and Filipino.
Roots aims to provide avenues for concretizing ways on how students can help fight poverty and contribute to the community with their given skills, abilities, expertise and resources.
Accepted volunteers are expected to be involved in disaster response and in the communities, as well as monitor programs and co-formators through the NSTP Support Group and help in the OSCI’s logistical work. The volunteers’ capacities will be sought to be built through facilitating activities like voter’s education during elections season.
Option for sophomores
Out of a hundred target volunteers, 32 are sophomores and will be blocked under one section for their NSTP. They have to undergo interviews with the OSCI formators to assure their commitment and their capacity for time management.
“The heads want to know the propensity of the students [who will] be involved. [The interview] is not to short-list them; we are just trying to make sure that these students have the heart, that when they are accepted, they will be in touch with the advocacies of OSCI,” Torres said.
In the new program, students can choose from four to five different venues for their insertions for seven Saturdays, unlike in LTS or in CWTS wherein students only have insertions in one area.
Torres said that these areas will be based on the student’s advocacies.
The processing of insertions will still be the same as the sessions of students under the LTS and CWTS components, only more particular in catering to Roots volunteers.
More personal
According to incoming sophomore Jiancarlo Geronimo, the new developments in the NSTP program would cater better to Ateneans.
“It’s great that even if NSTP has been a part of the Ateneo for a long time already, changes are being made to make it even better. And…even if NSTP is just a required activity by the law, the Ateneo is making efforts to personalize it so that it would cater to the needs of the Atenean,” he said.
Fellow incoming sophomore Kara Loren Guioguio agreed.
“Comparing it to the standard NSTP offerings, I think the changes are refreshing and it guarantees an experience with more personal insights since the students will be doing something that they really believe in.”
Independence
OSCI hoped that as volunteers, students can continue practicing the vision of Roots on their own, even after they have graduated.
“We [the OSCI formators] dream that the volunteers can handle different activities even without OSCI’s supervision. It entails that they are individuals who are masters of themselves in terms of how they know themselves, their identities, abilities, and beliefs. That beyond self-awareness, they know what their gifts are and what they can give to others,” Torres said.
