THE VALUE OF “LEARNING, TRAINING AND DOING” IN INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT OF CATHOLIC STUDENTS, ASIA PACIFIC (IMCS AP) PROGRAMME

 By Melky Pirez-PMKRI Yogyakarta

Manila, It was a great chance for me to join IMCS programme which held in Quezon city, Manila during June 2nd-9th,2018. The theme of this programme is “The Influence of Mass Media and Gender Equality”. The participants are from South East Asia such as Veitnam, Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia. The programme really enrich our thoughts by opening our minds and eyes to see from different perspectives. So I have discovered a lot of things through this IMCS programme as values of Learning, Training and Doing. Why do I call this as values, as it is a programme which cultivates a value  as in learning from each other, trainings to build capacity and doing by exposure experiences.

Therefore, the programme organized in a way it maintains the culture of creativeness, critical thinking, linking and relating and acting in productive ways. It prepares a mental capacity and enhancement of thoughts to face the social problem such as social justice, discrimination, poverty, human rights in our daily life. We were able to labour our ideas together by sharing, discussing and listening to others. We the youth who join this programme, are able to follow every steps during the programme until the end.

In this way, I would like to say that learning to do things better, differently and greater than before requires the merger of theory and practice at same time. Than enter to the phrase of learning, training and doing mostly to innovative ideas which move our mind from the conceptual to the practical and the experimental application. So what’s the difference between training, learning and  doing. These are designed to achieve a desired result through instruction or any process. The difference lies within not only the approach but also within the process. “Learning”, on the other hand, introduces the human element of behavior. Learning is focused on the process of passing information in such a way that the recipient engages a level of critical thinking and is equipped with the ability to apply certain aspects of the information to achieve an optimal result.

Learning isn’t accomplished via mere repetition of skills in a given scenario; it’s driven by strategic and creative application across a variety of situations. “Training” often applies to the compliance-related annual requirements such as prohibited harassment, anti-discrimination, safety, etc. Training follows a formula consisting of three primary components: instruction, retention, repetition. Training follows a specified course of action in a way that has been deemed appropriate or effective. And “doing” or action is conventional approaches and methods. This perpetual display of innovation will turn the concept of learning into an action-driven example.

International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS) is an organization which provide us to enrich our cultures, acknowledge sharing and build friendship as catholic students across the nation. It gives us more chance to learn many things from each other with different background and country. In this IMCS Programme, we learn about mass media and gender equality. Mass media can give us news, entertainment and education. However, the influence of mass media to the society has big effect especially teenagers. There are some positive and negative influences in young people of our society which due to the ad campaigns in the media. Here is a positive influence example, if there is a quiz show on education that is getting a lot of attention by the media and gains popularity among our friends and society, we will more likely want to actively participate and watch these quiz shows or news which inform in the media. These activities are good for the society and will promote literary activities in the youth yet negative influence to teenagers is the use of guns and ammunition by celebrity movie stars. The constant exposure of which would seduce the teen to replicate the same behavior in the real life.

Then we also learn about “Gender Equality”. It  means that man and women have the equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of women and men, girls and boys. Equality does not mean that women and men will become the same but that women’s and men’s has the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities which will not depend on whether they are born male or female. Gender equality implies that the interests, needs and priorities of both women and men are taken into consideration, recognizing the diversity of different groups of women and men. Gender equality is not a women’s issue but should concern and fully engage men as well as women.

Equality between women and men is seen both as a human rights issue and as a precondition for, and indicator of, sustainable people-centered development. Between mass media and gender equality have much relevant which gave me a new understanding to what I have done in my life and others. I do really believe that learning and training will lead us to the basic understanding and being thoughtful. It will grow in us a sense care and love to the society wherever we are living.

We also were given some real experience through exposure and immersion in Philippines. We were divided into six groups which went to different places as visiting the family of “Mary Jane Veloso”, Urban poor community, Political Prisoner, Gabriela an NGO which works on migration, Altermidya an alternative media for social justice dan Rise up group. My group went to visit the family of Mary Jane in Ecija Nueva. In my exposure area, I discovered many valuable learnings by seeing the life situation and listening to the story of  Mary Jane’s family. We could see the tears and deep sadness in her mother, father and sons how much they love her. She was the victim of human trafficking not smuggling drugs. Mary Jane Veloso won sympathy in her home country of the Philippines, as well as within Indonesia, after she said she was duped into smuggling drugs. And in a shock turn around, the Indonesian President Joko Widodo delayed her death penalty with a temporary reprieve, just hours before she was due to be executed in April 2015.

Migrante International is a group that promotes the rights of overseas Filipino workers. They are fighting for the social justice and took the advocacy for Mary Jane.    Mary Jane Veloso’s life depends of the speedy trial and conviction of her accused traffickers, Maria Kristina Sergio and Julius Lacanilao. But the group complains that the defence has employed delaying tactics by filing motion after motion to keep the case in the early stages of legal proceedings. Mary Jane is only a case from others thousand cases which is faced by Filipino who works in overseas. Here, I could find that many people are struggling to look for job in order to live a better life but there are are challenges to be faced. Life is not easy but it is a process to be better. Mary Jane is in process to find justice for herself. Many people over all the world are watching over her case and we always keep praying for her.

Than we learn to be a campaigner, promoter and make some propaganda media in order to proclaim the justice for society specially for those who are around us. In this programme, I learned to understand new things from people who are around me, including those giving us the knowledge. We were also trained on how make video from our learning and experience of the exposure as a part of media training.

Finally, I would like to say that the more I know, the more I do not know. I know that I do not know anything yet,so I must learn to know more, be trained in many things and doing thing which value life. It was very valuable programme to enrich our acknowledge in the context of gender equality and how to understand the influence of mass media by learning, training and doing what we learned with others from another country.

Pro Ecclesia Et Patria -(For the Church and the Nation)