What will I be doing in the Philippines?

In just over a week from now Steph and I will be on a plane flying towards The Philippines. Assuming all goes to plan we are going to be living in the Philippines for the next few months, we will be living and working in a home for boys just outside Cebu City (if you don’t know where Cebu City is then google it!). What we will be doing exactly we are still waiting to find out but there are around 125 boys in the home so I expect there will be plenty to do.

The Boys’ home where we will be working, which is imaginatively called ‘Boys’ Home’, is run by a community of Salesians. The Salesians are a community of religious brothers and sisters which has members living all over the world. The work of the Salesian community is caring for and educating children and young people normally the most disadvantaged of the areas where they work.

The Salesian way of working embraces a holistic and christian approach to education. Formal education takes place in an environment of Prayer, Play and Care. A Salesian teacher would typically give as much importance to being with the children on the playground and the chapel as he would to being with them in the classroom. The Salesians put a great emphasis on the importance of being present alongside young people, loving what the young love. Just being present and willing to spend time with the young is already to value and affirm them.

Steph and I will soon be trying to live out this theory in reality......