SteemPH Davao Home Steading Brigade: An Outreach Event

It was a great day, very tiring for sure, but it was all worth it. I am drafting this post in a beautiful beach in Island Garden City of Samal.

Here are some basic information about Samal taken from the City's official website:

The Island Garden City of Samal, a coastal paradise, group of islands strategically situated at the heart of Davao Gulf in the Southern part of the Philippines. It is geographically separated from mainland Mindanao. It lies only 900 meters east of Davao City and 10 kilometers West of Comval Province. And it is also 10-15 minutes ride from Davao City via motor boat or ferry boat. A city with resources potential of becoming an integral tourist destination and economic player in the country.

Its strategic location makes it the flagship site of the Philippines Tourism Master Plan, proposed convention and financial center of amenities for Southern Mindanao Development Corridor.

I am sitting on top of a log under the shade of a huge Sandor tree, my bare feet feeling the power-like white sand and occasional movements from hermit crabs, my right cheek being kissed by small rays of sun getting through between the Sandor tree's leaves, the left by the cool breeze from the sea, and my ears getting lullabied by the sound of the tiny waves. The best part was that this was just a bonus, and wouldn't compare to the beaming rays of smiles and huge waves of claps from the children of Libertad National High School as we spoke with them, and handed out or gifts.

We started the day at four in the morning to prepare, and be ready to go at around six to save ourselves from the heavy traffic during rush hour. We also wanted to get to the venue earlier than the planned start time, so we can have time to properly set up.

Now that I think about it, it's already been at least a full day's work even before the day of the event. The time we allocated between buying the seeds and fertilizers; repackaging them; buying the notebooks, pens, and intermediate pads; ordering the food the previous day; and driving around to get all the things we need would have already consumed a full eight hour shift.

We rented a six seater instead of bringing the borrowed sedan for a couple of reasons, first is to have ample space for the items we are bringing the children, and the other is because we are not familiar with the condition of the roads leading to the small high school. From @dandalion's folks' place we drove to the port for some thirty minutes, took the barge to get to the island, then drove some two hours more to get to Libertad National High School.

On the way to our destination we drove nearly all types of roads. We started with a national highway, an agricultural paved road, a dirt road, a rocky mountain road, and many levels from slightly rough to extremely difficult (very rough) roads.

Have we known that this was the case we would have went for a 4X4. We got to our destination and back home eventually though, thanks to our skillful driver.

We got to Libertad National High School around 8:30 AM. It rained the previous night and this area of the island has lost electricity since. The assembly hall was already filled with kids and teachers when we got to the place. We met the school administrator, unloaded our gifts, and got started with our presentation. It was tough presenting without a projector, this was made worst by the fact that there is no internet access in this area of the island; no DSL, no cable internet, no cellphone data connection even. From the school, decent internet connection is about an hour drive out. This was no show stopper however, besides we did not come here for the "show".

We started with a brief introduction of ourselves and our objectives. We used existing materials from our earlier #homesteading posts. We specifically picked the crops that are not too difficult to grow; okra, eggplant, and tomatoes. We had to move my laptop around the 50 students, 10 parents, and 10 teachers just so they can see the materials. We quickly followed this with the distribution of repacked seeds and fertilizers. I was surprised how excited everyone was to get their share of seeds. I thought they will be more excited for the Jollibee meal to be honest.

Highlighting that while we wish for everyone to learn about the life skill of growing their own food, we still want them to continue valuing their education, we handed out four notebooks and four pens per kid. We also told the kids that we left a box filled with intermediate pads to their teachers. This means that they probably wont have to worry about papers to use for their seat works and quizzes for an entire school year.

After distributing the gifts, it was time for the meal. There's no Jollibee in the island. We initially thought about preparing a home cooked meal for the children, but elected to bring them a Jollibee meal instead, and oh were they happy. Some of these kids must be tasting a "yumburger" for the first time. While the children were eating, we took the opportunity to speak with the teachers about Steemit. Most of the teachers are from Davao and travels to the island every week to tend to educating the island's children. We positioned Steemit as a means for them to:

• Continuously learn teaching techniques via @steemiteducation and the posts from the many educators we have in the community who post about the subject.
• Learn another skill that will allow them to expose their students to.
• Educate their students about the blockchain technology, believing that this can impact even the lives in this island in the years to come.
• A means to raise funds for the improvement of the school, their supplies, and the quality of education they provide overall.

At 11:00 AM we have completed everything we came here to do. We bid the students, the parents, and the teachers goodbye, and wished them all luck. A couple of teachers offered to show us around saying there's a nice beach nearby. We actually thought about getting a chance to take a dip post the event, and brought some swim wear, so we obliged. I'll start with this photo I described at the beginning of this post.

Here are some more photos of @dandalion and myself sort of rewarding ourselves for the deed we just did.