Text and videos by DANIEL ABUNALES
CAGAYAN DE ORO City – Come April, blackboards are clean, desks are well-arranged, classrooms are left empty. But not in a school in Balulang, a village some 7 kms away that is still reeling from a terrible tragedy.
For five full days in April, the sound of drumbeats and guitar strums filled the air, and children honing their acting skills were a sight to behold. At the school’s covered court, a group played with soil to create art pieces.
In one classroom, children as young as 8 years old created characters for a storybook they were making. Another group keenly observed different subjects, examining it from various angles before clicking their still cameras. In one corner, young directors and cameramen shot their first film.
Behind these scenes is the Sinag 2 Creative Expressions Camp (Sinag), an art workshop designed for the young survivors of typhoon Sendong.
Over 80 students aged six to 16 years old from Barangay Balulang participated in photography, big book writing, theater, soil painting, song writing, and filmmaking workshops from April 4 to 8, 2013.
Rosan Aliya Agbon, Kids for Peace Foundation Inc. founder and organizer of Sinag, said their expectations were exceeded. Even parents and teachers were in awe on the quality of work the children produced.
“They just needed to be given the chance to show their abilities, to showcase their talents and that’s what they did,” shared Agbon.
Sinag, which symbolizes new beginning, set out to just do that, as these kids are the survivors of the deadly typhoon Sendong.
Tragic day
Over a year ago Balulang was in mourning. “The community was filled with mud. Most of the houses were washed away by the flood,” recalled 10-year-old Jessa Mae Jasilva.
Balulang was badly hit by typhoon Sendong on December 2011. Over 670 persons from Cagayan de Oro City were reported dead. Of these, 34 were from Balulang. Damage to infrastructure and agriculture reached P1.7 billion.
“Our house was filled with mud. We had no money to buy food. We were dependent on the relief efforts and donations,” Jessa said.
Ten days after the typhoon, Agbon’s group surveyed the area. They then saw the need for psychosocial sessions.
“The kids were rowdy, they were a little violent, in a sense that they were not able to express the stress, the negative emotions that they went through because of the disaster,” said Agbon.
It was then that the Kids for Peace Foundation Inc. started conducting psychosocial sessions for the children. The group created play therapies that helped kids express themselves, to ease some of the trauma.
Jessa was one of the young survivors who tried the sessions. “We were able to move on. Without them, some of us could have not moved on until now,” she said.
The sessions ran for four months. This gave birth to Sinag 1 in May 2012. Children went through other workshops on photography, filmmaking, theater, big book writing, and soil painting.
Most of their output was based on the lessons they learned from the Sendong experience. Volunteer artists from Mindanao and Metro Manila facilitated the workshops.
More workshops
And that was just the start of many things. After the workshops, students, parents, and teachers wanted another round of Sinag—thus the birth of Sinag 2.
This time participants highlighted hope and moving forward.
Agbon said that this manifested in how children deal with certain situations. “Before whenever there’s a drizzle, whenever there’s strong wind they would panic. They would immediately rush to their homes. But now they’re not scared anymore. They’re more calm.”
Sinag 2 participants produced a play, three songs, three films, more than 30 photographs, several soil art pieces, and five big books of about 1.5 ft by 2.5 ft with colorful illustrations.
Here’s a film produced by the group, with the writer as their mentor:
Sendong may have brought so much pain to these children but the discovery of their talents through a creative, peaceful healing process made them realize they had so much more in them.
As Sinag 2 drew to a close, a unanimous chant led by the children, parents and teachers filled the covered court of Balulang Elementary School: “Sinag 3!”
(Daniel Abunales is a volunteer for the Kids for Peace Foundation Inc.)