I've been planning to talk about this certain topic lately but never seemed to find the time to do so. And while I have time on my hands now, I wanted to share with you all about some experiences I gained from my 3 insertions for my Junior EngagEment Program, or JEEP.
I was one of the (lucky) few who chose a relatively new area to do the JEEP: Quezon City Hall. There were about 18 of us in total; 8 for the morning session and 10 for the afternoon session. Since we were required to finish 12 hours we would be doing 4-hours of 'work' in the span of three Fridays. And indeed it was a unique experience.
As it was the first time Ateneo and QC Hall would be collaborating for this program, there arose a couple of complications as to the assignment of departments and what basically we the students would be doing during our temporary stay with them.
The department I was assigned to was the Social Services Development Department, simply termed as SSDD. At first I wondered what it is they did exactly, and it wasn't until my first insertion did I find out. But that isn't what I wanted to dwell on. What I wanted to share were my experiences from these three sessions.
On the first day, there arose a couple of miscommunication problems in terms of the endorsement to the departments that would be taking us in. This took most of the morning and we (or at least I personally) got settled to our departments at around 10 in the morning; hardly any time for anything to be done. But on this day, I managed to sit in and listen to one of the social workers interview some clients asking for financial help in paying for hospital bills.
It intrigued me that our local government unit was handling all these concerns. I'm not that much of a patriotic kind of person so I never bothered to understand the government and what they were doing for the good of its citizens but this really made me admire all the work they do just to make things a little bit easier for everybody else. Something I also observed from the particular department I worked with was that majority of them were female in gender. It was quite empowering in a sense, and it made sense as to why all of those assigned to my department were girls and not boys.
On my second insertion I was listening to more interviews, but also put my computer skills to use by helping out a little with the encoding and such. During this time I spent the whole 4 hours as I didn't have classes to rush off to afterwards like I normally did. But again, not much was done beyond interviews.
My third and final insertion was the most eventful so to speak. Upon my arrival I offered my help to the lady manning the computers, and I was eventually requested to help out in the conference room. Apparently they were going to hold a meeting concerning the Memorandum of Agreement for the Funerary Home Owners/Managers within the district of Quezon City. After helping out in preparing the room for our valued guests, I was tasked to take attendance.
During this time I got to see a new side of the various superiors I worked under for those three Fridays. In a way, I found myself to have established a good-standing relationship by the middle of the conference. Granted, I would be bold to say that I may have become fine acquaintances with them all, despite the gap in age.
It was a shame that I was just getting into the job and getting closer with my co-workers when my time came to an end. That's the downside to having so little a time for these kinds of programs; just when you've managed to break in to your environment you have to leave because you've achieved the number of required hours.
It wasn't a waste of my time to spend 12 hours in this government office. It didn't really have that heavy air of politics so it made things much less taxing and uptight. The workers were quite accommodating, and even though they knew I was from a high-ended school they didn't treat me any different than they would anybody else.
All in all it was fruitful experience. Much more so because of my co-wokers and the clients I had the privilege of encountering.
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