First 1000 Days Initiative

Previous nutrition programs initiated by the Barangay Don Jose Nutrition Office headed by Barangay Nutrisyon Scholar, Concepcion “Connie” Manera.

Our previous news story on the First 1000 Days program of the National Nutrition Council has yet garnered no updates in the locality of Barangay Don Jose in Sta. Rosa City, Laguna.

However, First 1000 Days programs are also being implemented worldwide to promote healthier children. More programs are being initiated to foster a stronger support for nutrition. In Geneva, a collaborative project brought to life the “First 1000 Days Promise.” The initiative was to aid in the early childhood education and provision of facilities to support the First 1000 Days program. It provides parents a multi-faceted support from food, counseling services, and education. 

Meanwhile, the government Zero Hunger task force is looking to sustain this program for years to come. While public and private institutions are contributing to aid in the initiative, the lead convener Kristine Go is still encouraging the public to support the program through monetary donations.

A Woman in STEM

At this point in time, we are yet to visualize a life beyond our collegiate life. We are yet to discover what lies beyond and which path we will take. Our lives as college students are just beginning to unfold, slowly revealing the rocky path and what journey we need to traverse.

As one unknowing DevCom student, I want to know what possibilities await upon graduating from college. In an email interview, I was able to get in touch with an alumna,  Ysabel Anne Lee, a Communications Officer in Asia, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT and a BS Development Communication graduate.

Why did you choose DevCom?

“Devcom was not part of my plan really, but going through the courses made me realize that it’s not everything I thought it was when I read the course description.”

What experiences stood out to you during your DevCom stay?

“I was a student assistant at the Department of Science Communication for 2.5 years. During this time, we organized student-led activities for the department and the college on top of our administrative duties as SAs.”

“The field visits and trips, expert interviews, and  that were part of our major courses were helpful in giving us a preview of what we can do in various Devcom (and allied) fields. Even getting involved in some extension activities of the faculty members is helpful in navigating the path we want to take after graduation.”

“Being in the student council also helped me become more involved during college.”

Which DevCom experiences did you feel were imperative to what you are doing now?

“I think the hands-on nature of Devcom and Scicom helped me establish my chosen path as a development communication practitioner. I also did my internship at The Mind Museum—seeing the public and private side of Scicom during college was instrumental in defining which sector I wanted to be involved in.”

Do you plan to pursue a different career path apart from what you’re taking now?

“Not really, I think Devcom gave me a good platform to be involved in various international and development-oriented fields.”

What are three adjectives that can describe your UPLB DevCom stay? 

• Insightful

• Dynamic

• Challenging

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As we have seen, Ms. Lee’s experiences with DevCom molded her and remained with her post-graduation. Her abounding efforts paved way for her career today, and we can take it as an inspiration to also excel in the field.

Barangay Beat

As a writer, I strongly incline on writing what I feel is important in my life. It encompasses writing expressively in journals and simply advocating for what I believe is right in essays. It takes time and thought to write a well-thought-out piece, to write intensely and with vigor. If I were to write continuously and passionately, it would only be due to the drive that comes with it.

Even with much thought and ruminating, I still couldn’t choose a singular beat I wanted to focus on. I have never involved myself in writing with many technicalities unless necessitated. Hence, it creates room for curiosity and creativity.

For now, however, I still find myself tracing back to what I love doing: serving my community. I draw a lot of inspiration and energy from what I can do to be of service to my fellow citizens. At times, I contemplate the daily happenings inside the barangay, how things work out. When programs roll out, what ensues? Who was there? What can people do to engage more? These are lingering questions in my mind.

Another thing that I love to do during my free time is to read. I have an exhaustive list of books I want to read every month and even for each one that I finish, there will be two-fold more of what I want to read next. It ties well with my interest in lifelong learning and education, in general.

At the end of the day, I feel that I have a recognition of what I want to do and what brings about my interest. If I were to focus on writing for a specific development beat, it would be a combination of education and civic engagement.

The Sting

It was never a shock nor a heavy bolt, it was just a sting.

Each time I feel sunny hanging out with new friends, I can’t help but feel a tinge of pain knowing that they already have a past that they could build on. Although it comes and it goes, I know that I’d still feel it in some form or another.

Living here still comes with a sting, for every good escapade there has always got to be a catch.

Title: The Sting

Objectives:

• Exhibit the key places in the writer’s hometown.
• Discuss the key places and things the writer does in their hometown.

Credits:

Music

• Bossa No Se by Cuco ft. Jean Carter
• F+L by Point Point

Videos

• Gabrielle Ann Pahuyo

The Callback

To be frank, it was a wild ride. It was, even if my journey wasn’t quite filled with org meetings and orientation sessions. It didn’t have to be similar to the experiences of my peers, it only had to be the way that it had to be, in the terms I felt was necessary.

The semester has been a whirlwind. I feel like I experienced every feeling it is available for excitement, anxiousness, eagerness, and doubt. At times, there was so much of it that it was spilling over to another, not knowing where the feeling starts and where it ends. There were highs as much as there were lows. It couldn’t just be good days, otherwise, you wouldn’t know if you’re still happy. Even then, as countless figures have said in movies, “When you know you hit rock bottom, it only means the next move is to go up.”

As things get better, here are the lessons I have learned from the first semester:

• When the going gets tough, be tougher.
• If you feel like you can’t do anything, show up.
• Romanticize the experience.
• It’s going to be hard if you make it hard.
• It won’t be like this forever, trust me.

You can only apply these lessons if you are brave enough. Let’s face it, the world wouldn’t stop for us. It’s going to be a slap in the face but eventually, you will have to move on. The fear of the unknown strikes us hard but not if we remain adaptable. As seasons change, so are the skills and qualities I have. Here is my final round-up of self-ratings: 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Surfing Browsers

Ah, yes, nothing beats the most anticipated Iskolar experience than dealing with SAIS. 

Being a Laguna native somehow meant you get a little bit of everything. If you’re an extrovert like me (well at least I was, since 16personalities decided that I am now an introvert), you probably had friends or acquaintances who had experiences with SAIS that defined certain days in the school year. I never had an opinion on it, but for the most part, I only knew of the struggles during enrollment period.

Personally, I’m not bothered by all of the commotion surrounding SAIS, thinking I’d only make it a problem when it became a problem. For a while since knowing my transfer decision to UP, SAIS wasn’t really the top of my priority. Eventually, as things rolled out, such as getting UP mail and courses emails, I hoped on having access to it soon. The night I received my credentials for the UP mail, I immediately tried opening SAIS. As unexpected and unfortunate it was, I had trouble accessing SAIS. 

Well, if it weren’t for the unfortunate circumstance brought by SAIS, I wouldn’t have probably conversed with anyone. That event helped me reach out to the people from my program, assessing their progress in accessing the portal. I have emailed a couple of times to the ITC and the SAIS helpdesk, just to expedite the process. I did try to keep in mind the amount of emails they’re getting and just follow up my situation every now and then. At one point, I memorized the emails and the information the office needed to process my concern. I even could make a photographic collage of every SAIS error page I encountered. There was so much range, trying it out on different devices, browsers, whether it was on incognito or not, and even internet connection.

In the end, it took a couple of weeks until I finally had access to SAIS. I didn’t mind taking it that long, I was mainly concerned about looking up my SAIS ID number needed for library cards and filling up forms. 

Now, as pre-registration approaches, I still don’t make it much of a big deal. I try to be more mindful of what is here and present. Creating an atmosphere of worry and anxiety wouldn’t do me any good if I were to over think what could happen in the near future. As a way of combating the worst case scenario, being knowledgeable and prepared does the trick. If things take a turn, knowing what you need to do next will spare you from your miseries.

From me, to you

Be the person you needed when you were younger.

Ayesha Siddiqi

Being kind to yourself when you’re alone can be tough. I have read somewhere that if people talked to your loved ones the same way you talk to yourself, you would be mad. That is if you talk to yourself rashly. I suppose they’re right.

I would admit that there are days (maybe even weeks) that I would only measure my worth depending on how much work I can put in a day and placing my self-confidence at a pedestal by setting academic merit as a parameter for being enough and worthy. Even if it was the parameter set by society, it is wrong to let it define you. Growing up also meant learning from your mistakes and taking into your heart what would work best for you. There is a spectrum of things I learned, but here are the things I want to remember:

Ask yourself, “what do I need most right now?” 

Attending to your needs can seem like such a huge step. What I know for sure is that taking care of yourself first does have to come first before anything else. You wouldn’t be able to be your best self if you let yourself down and be unacknowledged. Doing this also helps you untangle the chatter and priorities back in line.

Make friends, but don’t force it. 

Transitioning to a different season can be a hopeful but challenging journey. Having friends made me look at things differently, thinking it was only a transaction, not a connection. If you find yourself struggling to make friends, maybe start small. You don’t have to be friends with everyone all at once. This way, you can still have a company that can extend solidarity during hard times.

Brainstorm ideas during your free time. 

The shower and the walk home are probably my favorite places to be alone with my thoughts. Great conversations are formed through monologues, weird ideas turn to somewhat creative pursuits. It is simply a good way to let your mind wander and be experimental.

Be like Mirabel.

Disney Encanto’s Mirabel gave me a lot of perspective on how I can be more of service to others without them seeing me as a person paired with such talent. There is more to life than being talented. You can be hardworking, passionate, kind, and light. You just have to brave it and show up. 

Ask for help. 

Admitting to myself that I need help was probably one of the greatest ego crushers I have ever encountered. Growing in an environment where you don’t typically rely on others to help you can change the way you see acts of service. There is no shame in asking for help. If you need it, the first step is to ask. The world is kind enough.

Cracking the code

At times, we get overwhelmed. It seeps into our being and often leaves us feeling confused and aimless. I felt that, too. I was looking forward to doing great things but got lost somewhere along the way. I had no clue where to start once I came back up. Eventually, I did things my way. Here are 5 things that helped me pick up where I left off in my DevCom activities:

Prepare a backup plan.
I consider myself an organized person thriving in planned-out systems but I scarcely lay out a full-on backup plan in case Plan A doesn’t work out. After a while, I have found that it would be best to just create a safety net in case things don’t work out the way we intended it to be. It takes time and effort to prepare a backup plan, but it would take way more to improvise during the last minute.

Accomplish small things whenever you can.
Distributing workload and spanning them out across days and weeks benefits in easing your schedule. Rather than pulling out all-nighters or cramming things, it is better to do small tasks now and then. Unknowingly you get yourself from point A to point B by not doing as much hard labor. It tricks your mind to do small things rather than seeing it as one big project.

Look into recent news stories in your community.
Having a constant stream of information in your community and knowing where you could access them is one of the top things in being a development communication student. Aside from knowing what’s happening in your community, it would unconsciously seep into your being, observing which offices are utilizing their platforms well. It is a crucial thing to look into offices now and then to have a broad view of their usage, whether they have specific programs that you want to look into more. With a rapid and fast-moving environment, you might just be surprised by how often pages get updated.

Challenge yourself to do things differently.
If we let ourselves wander beyond what we know we can accomplish, we are preparing ourselves for greatness. We can try to venture out of our typical ways and creatively expand our knowledge and skills. There are things that we are afraid of trying, but if we let it on like this, we might never learn. Instead, try to take small steps in doing things differently.

Ask for help and guidance.
This might be one of the most important and underrated pieces of advice I could ever give. At times, it is hard to admit that we need help. We tend to become self-reliant, but we don’t need to carry everything all by ourselves. If you find yourself struggling or simply have a hard time understanding concepts, don’t be afraid to ask for help and reach out to your peers or mentors for guidance.

The Hard Tackle

Everything doesn’t fall right into place. Gathering data was quite a challenge on my end. It pushed me to change my beat several times, often ending up on a dead end. Nevertheless, I felt that this journey taught me valuable lessons that I can use when the time comes that I encounter this instance again.

My experience on retrieval was by far the most challenging among the three. Even with the chance of living in a city, hopeful to find information on the topic I am pursuing, I still had a hard time. There were Facebook pages for the offices I was looking into, however, not all of them have an active rollout of information that I need. Some materials seemed like noise— posters of who won which contest. Community-related information or posts about what’s going on in the community was hard to come by. Even then, it was a consistent persistence of typing out the right keywords to find what you were looking for across pages.

Interviews wouldn’t be so hard if you know the right people you are looking for and you know the information that you need from them. Oftentimes, people will be willing and accepting to schedule interviews so long as you ask politely and they happen to have an available time for you. It is also important to remain mindful of the words you are using around them, to treat the interviews with the utmost sensitivity. With experience, it would come naturally to have formalities first such as informing them of what is to happen, what questions you want to ask, and ultimately, having them have an informed decision and consent to proceed with the interview. It should be prioritized so that you have a clear reception that they accepted your invitation to interview so that you won’t get in a tangled mess later on.

Eventually, observation comes in handy if you’re in the interview itself. Since everything is done online, being extra observant comes in handy. I, however, had to interview in person since the interviewee isn’t familiar with the technology for meeting online. I later learned that she only manages to meet online with the help of the younger people in the barangay. There are little things that are hardly noticeable when you are only meeting through a screen. I think what helped the most is observing the auditory and visual cues from whom you are interviewing. It can point to larger issues that need to be addressed. Like the use of vernacular language, observation requires sensitivity. Since one could only get so much information through a screen, one has to exert more effort in observing during the interview and data retrieval as well. There are instances where we could pick up slight nuances that may look negative in our context, but serve an entirely different purpose in the other party. It helps to ask questions, with the right intent, so that we may not be misled by what we observe. Since I get to do it in person, I had more access to the observatory cues that were present in the environment.

Lastly, these are some tips that I curated myself which I find the most helpful when gathering information:
Have a brief check on data availability first.
Identify backup topics.
Keep your topic on the top of your head each time you’re working on it.

The last of UPCAT (for now)

Our freshmen media writers share their UPCA stories and tips to help aspiring UP students prepare for UPCA. 

Entering UP was a different experience for me than most of my batchmates. I have no idea what ensued during UPCA, I only had the UPCAT and transferring experience. I believe that many of the Batch 2021 will have their own definitive experience of the UPCA, and I’m here to offer you the UPCAT experience.

UPCAT doesn’t start on the day that you take it. It starts way before that, years even. I didn’t do much for the earlier years since I was carefree and wasn’t under any pressure to excel academically. I only began taking things seriously the summer before my 12th grade. I entered a summer program to help me with exam taking and having a refresher on lessons we’ve taken in high school. 

For the most part, it was challenging. We had to exercise our minds by having to answer mock tests and take in loads of information afterwards. I belonged to a class that had students from Pisay (Philippine Science High School), Rural (UPRHS) and Saytek (Sta. Rosa Science and Technology High School). I may not be the only one who felt a strong pressure to not be dumb during classes especially with the kind of people you’re classmates with. 

Soon enough, the classes were over and we had to take a mock exam. Since the summer school primarily focuses on getting the students into UP, most (if not all) advice is directed to get your mind and body in the UPCAT state. We took our exams and met again for the last time to get our predicted UPG, the be all and end all of this situation. Luckily, I was able to get a predicted UPG more than what I was aiming for. 

The experience didn’t stop there. We had to study and test ourselves consistently to be able to have the sufficient knowledge and pace to ace UPCAT. I wasn’t the best at studying, but I still tried my best. I didn’t get too pressured of getting into UP since I was also planning to take college admission tests from other universities. 

Two days before the UPCAT, I tried to cover as much material as I could. I knew it was going to be the last day I’m going to study since I was advised to take a rest the day before the actual test. I did just that, I rested the day before. 

Finally, the day has arrived. I rested well the night before and had decent levels of energy. I was assigned to take the UPCAT exam on Day 1, afternoon session. Before getting into the testing area, which was the CAS Annex II, I had lunch with both of my parents. I had the right amount of vegetables and liquids at IRRI, ensuring I’m properly nourished and hydrated.

After that, we went back to the campus and waited until the morning exam takers were done. I kissed my mom and dad, and went on with the exam. I don’t remember much of it aside from the fact that I just took it easily and without any expectations for myself. I feel fondly about reading a text that mentioned something from my childhood. Just like that, the exam was done. 

Months after that, the test results from other universities were rolling out. I began feeling pressured to pass the UPCAT. A lot of crying happened. The day finally came and we’re ankle deep in the pandemic. Gladly, I had a UPG that could qualify for reconsideration, and did just that.

In the end, I didn’t get in. It was melancholic, but I knew in myself that I still have another opportunity to be in UP. I entered college and took BA Communication. I worked hard to get good grades, and explored opportunities outside my comfort zone. Three terms later, I applied for transfer to the University.

I still maintained a balance between optimism and what could happen otherwise. The rest was history.