Manikako

When I'm all excited about something, I can't quite start writing about it. Like now, I should just plunge in with my story but here I am rambling and not knowing where to start. So I'll just pull the first thought that comes in my mind and hope that you people can make some sense of it.
When Mt. Pinatubo erupted, our school, St. James College of QC, held donation drives. Hallways were lined with one-peso coins and nuns, or at least my memery telss me they were, would collect the coins in little sacks each afternoon.
In high school I transferred to Cotabato, where war refugees were a part of the demography, you had to wait for army tanks to pass by before you could cross, and your rich Chinese cousin gets kidnapped. It does sound bad but hey, my family and friends are there. I became head of a group called RYA for Religious Youth in Action and basically what we did was put up donation drives upon donation drives to help the deposed families of whatever calamity, and in that time there were quite a lot, that came by.
In college, I joined CYA, quite a coincidence really and a big part of the reason why I joined. It stood for Christ's Youth in Action and again I was out helping build a home with Habitat for Humanity, and teaching street kids basic lessons.
I am working now in a rather big advertising, I'm still crossing my fingers and hoping I'd do well enough to be regularized, but that's not the story here. The story is Manikako, a project my immediate higher-up is very much into. Manikako is the fund-raising arm of ArtHOC or House of Comfort Art Network. Check their very cool website at www.manikako.com. The goal is to raise enough money and materials to continue the free art workshops that ArtHOC hosts. The art workshops are for underpriviledged children, it aims to empower them through art. You might have heard about this or watched it on tv.
So, all this time I am wondering why I didn't take up social work. But maybe that's because you can always help no matter what you are. Can you imagine? Here I am, loving social work, loving art, loving dolls, loving children. And Manikako came along. Hah!
If you're interested, visit the website and sign-up as a volunteer. We sew dolls, talk to adorable children, ask for old clothes and sewing materials, have fun, laugh, and make other people and children laugh with us. So let's all make a brighter future, one doll at a time, one smile at a time.