Monsanto Philippines recently donated books and school materials to support the Philippine Ohanashi Caravan’s story-telling activities in different barangays in Metro Manila. With support from various organizations in Japan and the Philippines, the Philippine Ohanashi Caravan was able to launch its story-telling activities some three months ago to help instill good moral values, helpful skills and proper hygiene amongst street children in depressed areas.
Chat Ocampo, Monsanto Philippines’ Corporate Affairs head said Monsanto supports the Philipppine Ohanashi Caravan’s endeavors in using story-telling to reach out to our street children. “Story-telling is a very effective way of providing guidance and raise awareness amongst our young so we know that the Philippine Ohanashi Caravan’s story-telling activities will be very successful in meeting its goals,” Ocampo added.
The Philippine Ohanashi Caravan is a special project of the Women’s Federation for World Peace – Philippines, a non-government organization. The Federation’s Treasurer and Board Director, Ayako Malicdem, said “our method of imparting values through story-telling has been done and proven effective in Japan for several decades now and we would like to reach out to our street children in Manila to also make a positive difference in their lives.”
Malicdem further said that story-telling is important because it is very effective at imparting important information that people will remember and at helping people relate to one another. Meantime, Ocampo added that story-telling is also easy to do “because come to think of it, we are all story-tellers when we communicate. We actually organize brief stories in our heads when we interact and have conversations with other people.”