Dom
Ateneo de Manila University
For the past few weeks, I’ve primarily been working on online posters and banners for various ACOPIA activities. I have done posters for ACOPIA’s free Japanese lessons to Koreans, the multicultural classroom program, and posters for the weekly meet up sessions. I have also worked to promote ACOPIA meet-ups by handing out flyers out in the streets. One time, I distributed flyers outside Sogang University with some of my fellow Filipino interns. As a foreigner in Korea, I found it a bit difficult to accomplish the task of promoting our meet-ups because of the language barrier. Nonetheless, I did my best in order to encourage many people to come. Unfortunately, this proved to be ineffective as our meet-ups would often result with a low turnout. That being said, I still enjoyed the sessions because we got to talk about our country and our own culture, which is something that I am very fond of doing. I also enjoyed how we prepared for them because we were allowed the opportunity to cook a specialty dish from our home country. For our meet-up, we cooked banana que and turon, two very popular snacks from the Philippines. The snacks we prepared was a huge success among our fellow interns and our invited guests considering that none was left after our meetup ended.
Apart from those aforementioned, I have also created videos to promote the international work camp program. I enlisted the help of fellow interns by taking a video of them inviting people to attend our work camps. I made a video promoting the upcoming work camp in Muju, South Korea, where I talked about the exciting and fun-filled activities that the Muju work camp has to offer. After accomplishing this task, I proceeded to promote the video through various ACOPIA social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Aside from this, I have also been teaching English to a Korean local once a week on Mondays. Our tutorial sessions are mostly conversational, and we would mostly talk about random things such as our hobbies, our families and food. We would talk about anything under the sun so that he would be able to practice and improve on his English communication skills. I enjoy teaching my student because not only do I help him with his English speaking skills, but I also learn more about Korean culture, especially because he oftentimes talks about the exciting things I could do during my brief stay here in Korea. When I am not occupied with special tasks given by Camille or Danbee, I research on organizations from the Philippines that ACOPIA could possibly partner with. So far, I have reached out to Jesuit Volunteers Philippines, Bale-Balayan in Pampanga, and Akap sa Bata organization. I am still waiting for their response to my partnership inquiry.
When we are not busy at the office, Me and my fellow interns attend dance class once a week on Mondays. Classes are held from 5-7pm, and we get to learn the routines of some famous KPop songs. In addition, we also attend the basic Korean language class at the ACOPIA school every Wednesday from 12:30-3:30pm. The language class is something I look forward to every week because our seonsaeng-nim would teach us valuable Korean words that we could use in our day-to-day activities.
During off-days and weekends, me and my fellow Filipino interns do our best to explore as much of Seoul as we can. So far, we have already been to Everland, Lotte World, Myeongdong, Dongdaemun, and Seoul Tower. Everytime we go out to relax and unwind, our group would slowly get bigger and bigger. From only having Josh, Dana and Lia for company, we were introduced to Taylor from the US, and then with Alvin (PH) whom we’ve gotten closer to since the internship began. The group dynamic has gotten crazier and more fun with them around. It is because of this that I have learned to appreciate this internship more because of the newfound friends that I have gained, all of whom have enriched this whole, wonderful experience for me.
