Immersion programs going to poor communities encourages teenagers to see the whole world not the hole of the wall like rats do is key in preventing suicide cases among children coming from affluent communities - K.I.
My sister in law Sylvia came late yesterday to pick Alexandra my niece. She had to go and visit the parents of the 17 year old teenager who committed suicide. She was a member of her church St. Stephen church which is an Episcopal church in Belvedere. The teenager yesterday early morning, jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. She was a senior student at Redwoods High. She is from Marin, one of the most affluent place in the US. I was told by a youth member in my church that Marin has the highest in terms of suicide rate among teenagers aside from the incidence of drug use and eating disorder. This condition does intrigue me. I suspect the problem has to do with affluence and success which is a sort of cultural norm in the area, thinking that the more affluent one becomes the more the pressure is experienced by families and their children. Churches miss to handle this problem in their mnistyr of reaching out. My wife Tessa, gave a succint advice to me. She said that it would be good for churches to do exposure and immersion program for teenagers in this area just to make them see that their life is far better than others. She said it would be be a good way for teenagers to understand the world by understanding themselves through plight of others in slums, ghettos, in the rural area where scarcity of basic needs is a problem.The girl that died yesterday came from a middle class family. They live in an affluent place were the price of houses is so high. She drove her nice car to the bridge and left it in the parking lot and jumped off to the seabelow never to be found. Tessa's suggestion struck me in that her advise was simple yet truthful. Many of the kids and teenagers in Marin have a life of abundance. Yet inspite of that there is this hallowness inside them. Parents give them materials needs yet they crave for something, something they cannot understand. This crisis is a contradiction of two factors clashing each other. One having experienced a progressive culture and two a culture of affluence. While many are exposed to the progressive and liberal thinking they are also exposed to the pressures of not to settling for less with perfection and success the driving norm. Not syncronized together these contradiction leds to depression whereby while one opens his heart to new possibilities yet not knowing where to go. They are immobilized by this contradiction that many end their lives. Suicide has become rampant in Marin. It has become a way out for kids. In the Philippines people so desperate commit suicide too. They jump on top of billboards. Not pressured in looking for fullfilment in life but becuase they have no food.
In affluent communities I observe there is this unspoken culture of giving prime importance of individualism. This is true in Marin. This sense of individualism is devastating for the many. However this is teached in the early of kids. They made to stay inside their own rooms when they need their parents warmth during the night. In grade school they are required to be in soccer fields during Sundays so that parents have time managing their busy schedules. Their busyness is a reflection of a rate race culture driven by and obsessed to have their own American dream, a culture that gives prime importance to success, along it perfection and a sense of control. It is so hard to schedule appointments within a weeks time. It is hard becuase out of their obsession of that sense of control they have plotted a whole year of their schedule that there is no way for late appointments to be accomudated. They try to make a sense of their life by balancing work and leisure, a sense of sanity if you will and that the numbers and days in the calendar are so important. Yet it is totally insane to be controlled by the numbers in the calendar. These would come as a surprise for a person coming from a third world country whereby accomudating schedules is a good thing for one to explor possible transactions thus finding ways to survive.
There is a connection of suicide cases and the ongoing recession in the US. One of the news clips that struck my attention was about dogs. In Sacramento where house forclosures are high many dogs are abandoned. Dogs are left behind by owners. Some kind enough are given to pet shops. Owners leave them becuase apartments prohibit pets. For Americans dogs are an important part of the family. Leaving them is an indicator of psychological mess. It is a painful experiences for them to abadon dogs. They buy dog houses, dog food and even bring them to dog restaurants and parlors in time of plenty and abundance. They cannot imagine hearing stories that Filipinos eat dogs.
Churches in Marin should adress in finding ways breaking to address these issues. Families are entrapped in a cycle of of an unending rat race only to discover they are still rats. Just like rats they live in inbetween walls having their own holes to make their way in. However they see these holes as their world. There is a need to tear these walls to illustrate that the world is not hole in the wall. Instead of having summer camps that isolate teenagers putting them in the middle of a forest doing their own thing, or sending them to summer arts school to have a sense of aesthetics for themselves, they should be encouraged to join exposure programs going to poor communities, among peasants, among indigenous people, among the urban poor and workers and try to learn from them. It is good for these kids to see that their situation is not worse at all.
How do I maintain being imbued with the sense of responsibility doing organizing yet at the same time struggling with the fiercest enemy, the self, getting out of being petty bourgeois, to that of having a proletarian viewpoint and standpoint. This is best be answered in doing practice. People are always not static. The light is always not static. The notion that Jesus being the light is not contained in a specific continuum of space and time much more the movement of man expressed in history and present events. For history and events in itself is ever changing, changing in terms of how people interpret it through their own lens. Practice defines how contractions in life interact. Practice is the material expression of understanding how life is and what we want it to be, the here and now and the future as well.
Software technology is fast changing. Years past my brother and I have quite got it right when we forecasted a 
Timeline of Fil-Ams.
The social base of US imperialism is feudalism. Philippines is a supplier of raw materials for advanced countries like the US. Many of the agricultural lands in the Philippines are mostly devoted into monocrop such as banana, sugar and lately cassava. It is not a surprise that Gloria and her cabal of fascist are trying hard to stop farmers from getting near Malacanang. 
Recent Comments