Hungry in Class

I'm hungry. *classmate talks to me
I'm hungry. *teacher discusses
I'm hungry *classmate says something funny, whole class laughs. Huh? What happened?!
I'm hungry. *teacher continues to discuss
I'm hungry *classmate makes fun of me during class presentation Hahahahaha
I'm hungry. *whole world goes on
I'm hungry.

This was my situation during class last friday. I learned absolutely nothing, recall absolutely nothing, and remember nothing, except that I was hungry.
Oh wait, no, I remember some other things…
My tummy hurt.
My head was throbbing.
I was fantasizing dinner – sambokojin or some kind of buffet to celebrate my sis bday.
Regretting not having had lunch.

And that's one day. One missed meal. One wasted class.
Imagine 10 months (an average school year). 900 missed meals. An entire school year wasted.
Multiply that with 4000 kids of only 4 public elementary schools.
You get the big picture that the Blue Plate for better Learning feeding program wants to address.


I had started to question my involvement in the program (being a part of the core team that conceptualized the blue platito program, ASMPH’s 1.6 M fund-raising contribution to the larger initiative). My time as a YL6 student is precious – if im not studying or blogging, I should be catching up on sleep (and the occasional meal), so I had to asses my commitments properly. I had three things that bothered me:

1. I couldn’t actually reconcile nation building with the idea of a one-meal-per-day feeding program.
My experience last Friday basically concretized this for me. A seemingly insignificant issue, but how are we all supposed to learn, to develop without nutrition. And as they say, the youth is our future, so we need to maximize their capabilities.

2. All these lessons on sustainability; yet we undertake a feeding program – a 6M worth task (all 4 Ateneo graduate schools).
Ricky’s inspired post basically answered this issue. His beautiful point was that despite the seemingly small contribution and shady sustainability of the program, it is still our concrete single drop. Plans for sustainability and nation building cannot remain in the classroom or in theories or in the minds of the nation’s intellectuals, they have to be translated to action.

3. Its hard enough to get support for extracurricular projects – how much more one that involves GIVING UP money.
You have to believe in people; when they see the value of something, the concrete manifestation of what they had just given up – they are ultimately altruistic. My Case in point: this freshie who gave up her shoe fund – absolutely adorable - as her pledge for blue platito. People WANT to make a difference. Give them an avenue to.

I am proud to be a part of this project. If not for our nation and for the kids, as I’ve explained; then for myself, to be part of something that actually wants to build and is building a nation.

Support Blue Platito! Support Blue Plate for Better Learning!