Reflection of Michelle & Charmaine

Michelle Ramirez

Before I went to the area, I thought that doing this service-learning in Physiological Psychology wouldn’t be as effective as my past service-learnings because the topic to be discussed is highly-sensitive. This would be my first time to handle group of teenagers, as well. I was worried regarding the feedbacks and impressions that we might get from them.

During the actual implementation, I felt satisfied because we have given them enough knowledge on the effects of drugs. I’m also confident that we have given them valid reasons not to resort into drugs when faced with problems. As we go along during the service-learning, I felt that doing the task was all worth it because it strengthened my relationship to the partner community.

I felt good about it because it gave me a sense of belonging in the area. I’m happy that we had this little chance to share our knowledge about drugs to these unfortunate adolescents. After committing my time and effort to this service-learning, I’ve realized the importance of endless fulfillment when helping other people.

My thoughts and feelings encouraged me to get out and do something else like inspiring other adolescents to help someone in their own little ways. In addition, I’ve got to enjoy what I do especially when it’s about taking responsibilities in the community. Like what I’ve experienced in my past service-learning projects, the reward of simple smile from a participant, makes me a better person.

Charmaine Dumandan

I was hoping that the participants would be cooperative so that we will have a fruitful implementation of our project. There were no hesitations for me regarding the area since it's a partner community of INSA, and of course we will be accompanied by Ms. Carla. I was also hoping that we can get enough data from the needs assessment so that we will also have inputs on the implementation day.

Regarding the skit wherein we explained how the drugs work on the brain, it was pretty hard explaining this in Filipino. Specially that we have no Filipino terms for the scientific terms. What was on my mind that they was not to repeat the usual effects of drugs on the person's body because they know this already, I was focused on explaining how the drug works inside the person's body.

I was relieved because the implementation was done and it was successful. Thankful also because of the cooperation of the youth at Marytown, even if it was Sunday they still went to our activity and they even brought some friends with them. I just hope that the kids there would share to others what they have learned from the activity.

Overall, the SL was a challenge for me because this service learning was different from what we have done in our previous service learnings. Different because we we're not supposed to do an application type of SL, but what we will do is to impart what we have learned from our course subject. Although this was quite new for me, I and my groupmates have done our ways to make this activity successful.