Kool Adventure Camp awaits you in Cebu

There’s a new and unique educational facility nestled in the mountains of Balamban, Cebu, which can be accessed through the Transcentral Highway, which is located around 40 kilometers Northwest of Cebu City. It is called the Kool Adventure Camp (KAC) a flagship program of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) located in Barangay Cansumoroy.

RAFI started the Kool Adventure Camp (KAC) way back in 1999. It is a program designed to help individuals or organizations mold a strong character in their personnel in a most professional and powerful out of school learning experience that cannot be found anywhere in the Philippines. Yes, this is why I’m writing it here so that many organizations, notably private schools and business organizations would know that KAC is now officially opened for business.

Back in the Year 2002, when I was chairman of the Cebu City Traffic Operations & Management (CITOM), RAFI introduced me to the KAC program and I hauled the top CITOM officers and staff to a KAC weekend course which was then located in Mactan. I also joined this course and it was to be an unforgettable experience for me. After all, being a big bike rider I’m a bit of a daredevil myself. Remember last month when I was in Orlando, Florida and went to Universal Studios Adventure Land? I wrote that I took the Incredible Hulk roller coaster ride, which is why I lost my iPhone 5. Few columnists would dare take such a dizzying ride.

The KAC ropes course was to say the least a nerve wracking experience. Rock climbing stunts has never been my thing and here I was doing it blindfolded and tied with two women in the CITOM staff and with sheer determination…we reached the top of the wall. How’s that for trusting one another? But that was in Mactan. KAC in Balamban today has many areas on the ropes course alone. Last Saturday, there were already many students on this program and the Cebu media had a field day watching those kids.

I have no doubt that taking a three-day course with KAP would create many unforgettable experiences for you and your classmates or officemates. One simple exercise for example teaches you to build trust from amongst your peers. You stand up a very high chair blindfolded and five or eight of your friends are behind you, four on each side and you drop on your back like a stone into their waiting arms. Your problem is… how do you know that they’re there to catch you?

If your fellow workers don’t like you…they just might let you fall into the floor and break your head. Of course they won’t do that because they know that everyone has to pass this exercise. But it certainly teaches you to trust one another because you are literally in their hands.

The KAC facility in Balamban is called the Adventure Education Center (AEC) because it teaches you so many things that you just can’t learn in school. KAC is a 10-hectare property featuring 28 very challenging ropes course (CRC) complete with living facilities like corporate cabins and youth bunks (yes, living side-by-side in bunks will certainly be etched in your memory as one of the best times of your life) that surrounds an iconic structure designed by industrial designer Kenneth Cobonpue that looks like birds flying away. This would be one facility that DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro should never miss when he visits Cebu because students especially the graduating ones should experience this 3-day program, which I hope the DepEd would include in their 2015 annual budget. 

Incidentally, the 9th annual Future Leaders Summit will be happening on Aug.14-16 at the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel. This is a unique approach by the Aboitiz Group to bring together the best minds in next year’s graduating class in participating schools to personally interact with the top Aboitiz executives for three days…so that students can break the ice in talking with the top bosses of the country’s big conglomerates, while the top executives of the Aboitiz Group get to personally know those students who just might work with them in the near future. Now if only RAFI and the Aboitiz Group could find a way to merge a KAC experience in that Summit…it would be the most unforgettable 3-days of their lives.

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Last Saturday evening was a Red Letter Day for Cebu’s power couple, Michel & Amparito Lhuillier as they celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary with a big bash that began at the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral with Cebu’s glitterati in full force, including their many friends from Manila and abroad. After they renewed their sacred vows, we all motored to the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel for a great wedding feast that began with cocktails complete with huge fresh oysters and a collection of the best wines. Dinner came a bit late at 10 p.m. because of a long program, which was capped by Ogie Alcasid singing a George Canseco hit, “Kailangan Kita.” Congrats to Michel & Amparito Lhuillier.

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