Bigay Puso: forming "persons-for-and-with-others"

“Persons-with-and-for-others” is a phrase that is well-known in any Jesuit institution, whether it be a school or a mission area. In the Ateneo de Manila Grade School, which is run by the Jesuits, students are expected to live out this ideal from an early age. This is why our students are given opportunities to deeply understand, reflect, and experience what it means to become such a selfless person during their stay on campus and beyond.

Spearheaded by the Social Involvement Office (SIO), the Bigay Puso program is one that enables students, teaching and non-teaching staff, and parents to participate in various social action endeavors. The program also emphasizes that we become persons-with-and-for-others not only by sharing material things, but by also building friendships, sharing our God-given talents and skills, and most importantly, by spreading God’s love and presence to people from various walks of life.

Anchored on the Parable of the Five Loaves and Two Fishes, the program assigns each Grade Level a specific partner institution to be its Bigay Puso partner for the school year. The program was also carefully formulated based on the developmental approach of each Grade Level’s curriculum and the corresponding spiraling method. Some activities that are done in the Grade Level are Virtual Interactions using Google Meet, such as making hand-written letters like Christmas cards and thank you cards, watching informative videos about the partner institution, and many more.

As mentioned, each Grade Level is given the chance to meet people from various sectors in our society. For this year, our Kinder boys got to know the jeepney drivers from Katipunan-Balara Jeepney Operators and Drivers Association (BKJODA). This is also in line with their year level topic, Community Helpers. Last 15 February 2023, the students had a virtual meet-up with some drivers using Google Meet. The students were given the chance to ask the drivers meaningful questions related to their work, life experiences, and many more. According to Teacher Stef, one of the class teachers who facilitated the activity, “It was a fruitful Bigay Puso Interaction for everyone, especially for our Kinder boys.” The Class Parent Representatives also joined in the activity as they also play a big role in this program. Some parents even said that it was their hope that the Kinder boys will be able to ride an actual jeepney in the future as it will be an  enriching experience.  

As for the Grade 1 students, their partners for this year are the “Cateneans” under the Ateneo Community Cat Program (ACCaP) of the Ateneo Institute of Sustainability (AIS). Since Grade 1 students are focusing mainly on taking care of God’s creation, and AGS has been promoting  Care for the Common Home under the Laudato Si, lessons on caring for animals are among those that the boys are interested in. Also, students can easily understand how ACCaP works because cats are found everywhere on campus. Last 8 March 2023, our Grade 1 boys were given the chance to talk and interact with some of the school’s security guards who feed the campus cats, personnel from AIS, student volunteers, and volunteers from the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS). It was a morning full of meaningful activity and learning. The students learned  lots about the different cats and how to identify them based on their color. 

In an evaluation done by the SIO, 90.9% of the students gave a 3-star rating for the virtual interaction, while 99.5% of the students enjoyed the time they spent with their classmates, teachers and visitors. One of the parents also expressed her gratitude to the speakers and guests for an enriching and informative session for the boys. Another parent also mentioned that even they as parents learned a lot about cats, and it was also a wonderful experience for them and their sons.

As the boys move on to the next Grade Level, their Bigay Puso program also progresses to more complex social issues for the boys to learn about. The Grades 2 and 3 students, for example, met the students, teachers, and parents of Payatas B Annex Elementary School (PBAES) in Quezon City and the Raymundo Punongbayan Elementary School (RPES) in Cainta, Rizal, respectively. Both public schools are part of the Food Augmentation Program (FAP) under the supervision of the Ateneo Center for Educational Development (ACED). FAP’s goal is to address the decrease in school performance and attendance of public schools due to poverty. Both schools also belong to the poorest of the poor in their respective communities. For Grade 2, the Virtual Interaction took place last 16 February 2023, while for Grade 3, there were two parts to the interaction which happened last 10 November 2022 and 16 March 2023. The Ateneo boys  and the students from their partner schools had an afternoon full of getting-to-know-you activities, question-and-answer sessions, and even a short sharing of inspiring messages. One Class Teacher from Grade 2 expressed, “The Ateneo boys enjoyed the interaction. They were able to ask questions and were excited to hear that they share the same interests as the kids from PBAES.” One Class Parent Representative from Grade 3 also mentioned that the activity “... helped the boys to realize that even as kids and with limited interaction (online), they can do their share in helping their community through Bigay Puso.”

With the abovementioned Virtual Interactions that took place throughout the school year, our students were given the opportunity to respond to what they learned and observed, with some even volunteering to make a sacrifice for their partner institutions. The Bigay Puso bottle is one of the things that the students do together with their families. It is like a coin bank where they put their extra coins or sacrificed money for depositing in a bank later. This will then be turned over to the Grade Level’s partner institution at the end of the School Year in May. This Bigay Puso bottle is not just any monetary collection but also a product of the student’s hard work, initiative, and reflection. It is also how he expresses and manifests his love for others.   

Since the Bigay Puso Program was launched in August 2022, students have been filling up their Bigay Puso bottles. In time for Christmas, the first round of collection was done.   Respective Grade Levels from Kinder to Grade 3 had an opportunity to make others feel the spirit of Christmas in various ways. The Kinder batch gave out Noche Buena Packages to their Bigay Puso partner from BKJODA. A total of 37 drivers and dispatchers received a package with a hand-written letter from the Kinder students. Meanwhile, the Grade 1 boys gave a total of 451 Noche Buena Packages to two Parishes in the Diocese of Novaliches in partnership with the Tanging Yaman Foundation. Similarly, the Grade 2 and 3 boys shared educational toys and/or sports equipment to the FAP beneficiary of their partner schools from PBAES and RPES, respectively.

This school year, the Ateneo de Manila Grade School continued with the online modality for  the interaction between our students and the people from their partner institutions. Despite the limitations and challenges of the online set-up, we teachers believe that the students were able to have a meaningful experience as they got to know many people from their assignment partner institution. This provided our boys an opportunity to go out of their usual environment and accept God’s invitation for them to form friendships and to share His love with others. The Bigay Puso program is an opportunity for our students to gain new perspectives and to realize that being a person-with-and-for-others also includes understanding the context of others, and that Walking Together in Christ is an invitation to journey with the excluded and the marginalized.