On March 26, when the first crack of a tee-off echoes over the rolling greens of Mt. Malarayat Golf & Country Club in Batangas, it will signal the start of an event that, one can say, has been 50 years in the making.
Half a century ago, Rosalinda Lopez and Thelma Fullon of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines helped organize the Philippine arm of CISV. Established right after World War II by Nobel Peace Prize nominee and psychologist Dr. Doris Allen, the Children’s International Summer Villages (CISV) envisioned a program where peace education and intercultural exchange could take root early in life, sowing the seeds of global friendship and of a broader world view that would bear fruit in adulthood.
In 1951, the first Village—the program that would become CISV’s flagship—was held in Cincinatti, Ohio. Thirty-two 11-year-olds from the world over, and their adult leader volunteers, bonded for one month to get to know each other’s cultures, to join peace activities, to “live and eat and sleep, talk and laugh, and, sometimes, weep,” as the CISV song goes.
One of Doris Allen’s friends was a Filipino psychologist named Dr. Estefania Aldaba-Lim, and it was through Aldaba-Lim that Fullon and Lopez were inspired to form a group to participate. The Philippines sent its first delegation to a Village in Japan in 1962; we have been sending since.
Today, the Philippine arm of CISV has grown to five chapters—Manila, Baguio, Bacolod, Quezon City, and the latest, incorporated two years ago, Cebu. We have sent over 535 Village delegations to camps abroad, and here. We have hosted many Villages through the years.
New programs have grown, from environment initiatives to protect endangered clams, to a local camp for young cancer patients.
Keeping in step with the growth of CISV International (“Children’s International Summer Villages” is now known simply as CISV) into a worldwide organization present in over 60 countries, the Philippines remains active in the region and beyond.
Leah Navarro recalls
Filipino volunteers help train other volunteers and direct programs in HK, Korea, Japan, Norway, among other countries. CISV Philippines has come full circle: The grandchild of one of the pioneer delegates in 1962 also became a CISV delegate herself.
“I joined CISV in 1968, and I was sent to France,” recounts Leah Navarro. The famous pop singer from the 1980s, with hits like “Lagi na Lang” and “Ang Pag-Ibig Kong Ito,” Leah now organizes golf events through her company, Golf and More. Only five years old when the first delegation was sent to Japan, Navarro was part of a Village delegation that, as CISV mandates, was composed of two boys, two girls, and one adult leader volunteer.
“It was one of the experiences I remember with great fondness. It was a very educational, exciting and exhilarating adventure, and made a contribution to who I am today. [It] opens your eyes to a lot of things: Your horizons broaden, and it also widens your scope. The other part was [that you also learn] to be accepting of other people, other opinions, embracing differences. That has stayed with me for my entire life.”
Life-changing
Many CISV stories are similar to Navarro’s. Whether one participates as an 11-year-old in Village, or moves on to different programs for older youth, CISV can truly be life-changing. One’s world becomes bigger.
In a recent compilation of anecdotes, the “CISV Storybook,” Thomas Ølgaard, a volunteer from Denmark, summed it up nicely: “The Village was a total world experience.”
Flipping through the Storybook, one gets the sense of how much CISV has touched lives all over the world. There are stories of Arab and Israeli delegations working together for their cultural nights, of a musically inclined adult leader-volunteer from Senegal who was gifted with a guitar by his entire Village. Stories of friendships being forged across oceans, and more importantly, a greater sense of humanity engendered among its participants.
Another case in point: In the first-ever Village in Cebu last 2010, the US delegation was so moved by its experiences in the Philippines that, near camp’s end, it inspired the entire camp to “Pay It Forward” by pooling the resources of the delegates to help out a nearby public elementary school.
Year-long celebration
It is stories like these that will be relived as Filipino CISVers, old and new, come together this year to celebrate the 50th anniversary. A year-long celebration will kick off with a combination golf tournament and family sportsfest at the Mt. Malarayat Golf & Country Club in Batangas.
Indeed it is a busy year for CISV; there will be another Village in Cebu this August and a regional series of workshops will be hosted by the Quezon City chapter.
“We want the participants to have the best possible experience—a day to spend together with people you might want to meet, which is not unlike what happens in CISV!” Navarro says.
More than celebrating the past, the tournament will also be a tee-off for the future—a swing, a hope, and a wish for another 50 years to come. After all, CISV begins and ends with the children; another generation will be sent to camps to live an experience like no other.
“When you’re in a camp,” Navarro says, “it’s not just the perspectives of the three other kids and your adult leader that you see, but you get to see and meet and interact with [different] people, some of whom can’t even speak your language!”
For more information on the golf tournament and other CISV activities, call the CISV Philippines Head Office and look for Alice Sarmiento, tel. 632-8153326, or e-mail cisv_philippines@yahoo.com. Visit www.cisv.ph. Call Leah Navarro, Golf and More, tel. 632-8864791, mobile 0917-8981957.