3-day camp trains young leaders

MANILA, Philippines - In February 2012, the Asiawide Refreshments Corporation (ARC) welcomed the pioneer batch of the ARC Young Leaders Camp at a four-hour meet-and-greet session held at the Discovery Suites in Pasig City. This meeting preceded a three-day live-in workshop organized for the participants, held at the First Pacific Leadership Academy in Antipolo City on the weekend immediately following this welcoming event.

The camp participants were composed of 40 deserving-but-underserved Filipino college freshmen and sophomores who have, during their high school years, proven their capacity for leadership by heading youth groups, student councils, and various other organizations in their communities.

The ARC Young Leaders Camp aims to provide further training to these young people who, due to their families’ current economic circumstances, are unable to afford seminars and workshops that could help them refine and develop their leadership skills to the fullest.

The meet-and-greet event was held to give the program organizers and the participants a chance to know each other more personally before the busy camp activities began.

During the program, each of the student delegates stood up and introduced themselves to the rest of the group, giving their names, bits of significant personal information, and a short description of their backgrounds.

In these quick speeches, it was revealed that around 50 percent of the delegates graduated from public high schools; those who came from private high schools were only able to attend such schools through the sponsorship of a relative or through a scholarship provided by philanthropic individuals or organizations.

One of the ARC executives who welcomed the students to the Youth Leaders Camp was Gerry Garcia, executive vice president and chief operating officer. In his address, Garcia said that he himself was a product of a public school and a similar leadership camp in his youth. “I am a graduate of a public high school, Caloocan High School, and in my time, these leadership camps were held by the YMCA and the National Union of Students of the Philippines.

“When I look back and try to remember the names of the student leaders who were with me in those camps back then, I see that those who shone in those leadership camps continue to shine today. Their names are very much around.”

On that note, he encouraged the students to make the most of the camp, as such workshops have the capacity to change people’s lives, just as similar leadership camps once changed his.

Joining ARC in welcoming the 40 student delegates were executive director Joey Pelaez from the Center for Students and Co-curricular Affairs of the Department of Education, and National Youth Commission chairman Leon G. Flores III, who exhorted the youth leaders to lead not just in removing the wrong ways of the past but in building up better ways for the present.

The event closed with all the participants signing a manifesto that stated, “I commit to lead, create, change,” following the camp’s core theme of “Lead. Create. Change.”

ARC is the Philippine bottler and distributor of RC Cola. The ARC Young Leaders Camp is the company’s expression of corporate social responsibility. The event is in partnership with RCCI and in cooperation with the National Youth Commission.