845 Sykes Asia’s Face Painting Workshop with Tulong Sa Kapwa Kapatid, Escopa

Written by Board Member, Ate Charmain Tan
It was another outreach activity arranged by Ate Abby of Sykes Philippines, the first call center to support Filipino talent. Sykes began its operations in the country in 1997, starting out with 14 employees and now having 13,000 employees and 8 different sites. Their client, Ally Financial’s operations manager Mr Jeremy Miller is here in the country for two weeks. As part of his schedule he wanted to reach out to these children and spend time with them in the first weekend he’s visiting the country.
This morning we planned a lot of activities for the children of Tulong sa Kapwa Kapatid (2KK). 2KK is one of our newest beneficiaries, with our partnership starting from 2015. It was formed in 2003 after the Payatas landslide by a group of teenagers who wanted to do charitable activities every weekend. Thirteen years after it has now expanded to include new communities like Escopa. The children live in one of the GK communities, Gawad Kalinga Munting Pamayanan Village in Escopa 3, Quezon City.
It was my first time in GK Escopa and and the children of 2KK. The 70 children started to arrive early in the morning as they eagerly waited for the day’s activities to start. They were very behaved and sat with their friends while some of the volunteers who arrived early got to know some of the kids.
As we gathered all 70 children and 35 volunteers from Sykes, the kids got a warm up introduction to the volunteers by watching them dance Pen Pineapple Apple Pen. Some of the volunteers were really energetic like Ate Magi and Kuya Jeremy who did solo numbers. The children cheered as everyone kept dancing.
We then grouped everyone into 10 groups. We first played the game Bring Me Art where groups had to cut out the objects that we specified. They had to cut out shapes of circle, lechon, gift, and star. Some of the groups did a really good lechon cutout. The challenge was for the teams to cut as fast as they could. Everybody in the group had to cut out the item individually. Eventually group 6 won as they were the fastest.
We got to watch the performance of sisters Soda Sisters. They sang the popular song Starships by Nicki Minaj and got some kids to sing and dance with them. They also sang another popular song Let It Go and the moment they started singing all the children happily sang with them.
We then had our Face Painting Workshop by Kuya Eric. He demonstrated how to draw a Dragon. We asked Kuya Jeremy to come to the front so Kuya Eric can draw the dragon. He did a stroke by stroke tutorial and everyone got to follow. The groups painted in pairs. The volunteers first drew the dragon on some of the kids. Then they drew other images like horse, batman, flowers, and others. The ates and kuyas also let the kids do the face paint on them. The kids drew flowers and butterflies on the volunteers.
We then got to watch the spectacular magic show by Kuya Kobe of The Salamangkero Group. He did his popular fire tricks. Doves flew out from his pouches. When a rabbit came out from his hat and the kids screamed in delight. Kuya Kobe then held two cylinders, one had a glass inside and the other had a bottle. He moved the cylinders around and the kids had to guess which one contained the glass. The kids always got it wrong! In the end he kept pulling out bottles from both cylinders and managed to make the glass disappear. He then called Andrei, who wore a funny red and white clown wig. He taught Andrei to do some magic tricks but his wand kept breaking in half. All the kids kept laughing. Kuya Kobe also held out a monkey costume for Andrei and the children laughed even more. He then called Kuya Jeremy in front for another magic trick. He asked Kuya Jeremy to hold a cup filled with water over his head and asked him to pour out the water. Kuya Jeremy did so but it turned out to be an empty cup! Kuya Kobe was able to magically make the water disappear. As his final act he did the popular flying table as it flew above the children.
After the fun filled morning the children and volunteers enjoyed their lunch. We then gave storybooks as prizes for the winners of the game. The children also got a lot of gifts from Sykes. They received sleeping pillows, toiletry kits, and food packs. The kids happily hugged their pillows and thanked the volunteers for spending their morning with them.
We thank Ate Abby, Kuya Jeremy, and the rest of the Sykes collection department for a wonderful time spent with the children of 2KK. This is the second event they had with us, the first one was at Gentle Hands. We hope for more partnerships to come. It was indeed a lovely morning. How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it.

Add a comment

*Please complete all fields correctly

Related Blogs

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyReturn to Shop