In 1994 the International Community Actively Responding to the Environment (ICARE) was set up at the International School Manila. ICARE is a wonderful experience for all High School students. It allows students to contribute positively to their community, the environment and learn more about the Philippines and Filipino culture. ICARE is experiential learning and embodies many of the school’s aims and the IB CAS requirements. The school offers both Metro Manila and provincial sites. Over the four years in High School, where possible, a student will attend four different sites, experience a wide range of activities and work with many different students. Students should be challenged by ICARE to move out of their comfort zone and accept new challenges. ICARE balances service with enrichment activities. Students enjoy visiting Banaue Rice Terraces, hiking the Taal Volcano, trekking the Cordillera Range and learning how to weave with the Ifugao tribe.
A mirror held up to ICARE
(Words written on December 16th, 2009 by Blocks A,B,C,F
and compiled by Ms Gillman on January 3rd, 2010.)
We are responsible for their future.
Throwing waste on the ground without a care in our world?
Throwing fire at water?
Teaching fish to fly?
No.
We do not want to play an everlasting game of broken telephone.
Ours works.
We work:
We take a giant roller and paint children’s smiles.
Miles of unknown land stretches before us and
We trudge until scars mar our legs.
During the day,
The sun too high, too bright.
burning daggers pierce the back of our necks;
We trek majestic mountains towering over communities and
we regret the dirty coalmine corrupting the river.
We shiver
at the sight of the eagles that whisper ‘carrion’:
Calling out, calling us,
calling for liberation from a sanctuary;
oh the irony.
Like monkeys shot into space,
they can’t behold their significance.
One cup of soil,
one of gravel,
two cups of cement,
a few spoons of water:
sheer concrete perfection.
But is this a true reflection?
An unprecedented exchange of a plane seat
from economy to first class.
Can anything last?
Feeble fingers fumbling over nails and hammers.
Hitting bamboo as if trying for a homerun,
not knowing our technique is all wrong.
Like a scarred sponge immersed in salt water
and left to dry in the sun.
It was as if the spikes of the barbed wire
married my arms and covered them in ugly scratch babies.
We hug the earth with rocks on our back,
but finish with an end greater than light.
Painting lives to create a happy home.
The smell of manila’s waste
possesses my body,
and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Their lacking teeth gleam in the sun.
Their arms a basket of laundry.
One man’s trash is another’s treasure.
Their joy is a measure of our happiness.
Our blessings, their joy.
Christmas? Toys?
Paper stars folded by ignorant hands
shine plastic light reflected by aluminium cans
and
as the mounds of ancient dirt pile up
I sup on our shared humanity.
Intercepting lines of a city foot imprints nature as
I dig the beautiful sensation of pride
that fills our trenches.
The sweat drenches us but
With our paws we patch the grass and
No longer are the classrooms bare and blank,
but alive with our splashes of colour.
A sea of brown-skinned faces
glows in the dark room’s light, smiling.
A stained glass river of mountains,
where dust is the air we breathe
and rags the face we wear.
Are smiles all we leave
year after year?
I am a foreigner to this environment.
A proud conqueror standing over his domination
looking back now and then
to see his masterpiece from afar.
A creator looking at his finished product,
Neglecting sacrifices made,
Remembering how it all started,
Nostalgic as his head spins.
Is this how ruling the world feels like?
Up, up the mountain where the clouds touch the earth.
Nature conquers, only beauty.
Breathtaking.
Nature taking over.
The sun rose and the sun set
silently along the giant’s never ending staircase.
Getting hit by reality’s leaves on the truck.
A quick dip in the river
drips goosebumps from our pores
And we yawn.
And we melt.
Blinded by the beauty of the world
Blocked from the sounds of courage
Screaming for the end to come
Yet walking on two feet alone.
And the children continue to try
to listen, knowing they cannot hear.
Century old spires, debilitating cold, reasons for our misery.
Foundations for today; any chance for change?
Concrete blocks link us in chains,
shared pain binds us together in our humanity.
As we
break down the walls of monetary and material motivations,
the glitz and glamour of high living,
and the cold concrete of our private school,
And we
discover that we are all the same.
We live, we laugh,
we have the same passions, desires, dreams;
that same flame.
Two cultures are really just one.
Of all our ICare experiences, which is most important?
Not paint, not clothes, not farming,
not even our funds.
The biggest gain is not for them at all.
It is for our minds,
born of sheltered, wealthy nests.
Finally,
we can put a face to the faceless.
We can see beyond headlines, numbers and news bites,
what the human cost really is.
What we’ ve already lost
And how much we have to gain
As long as we resolve to remain.
To hear this poem in the voices of the students who wrote it,
Click play button below.