Thirty-six (36) new recruits are now formally welcomed into the fold of the Arrupe Office of Social Formation’s corps of student volunteers. These greenhorn Arrupe Vols, as people in the university are wont to call them, distinguished as Batch 43, underwent a whole-day Basic Orientation Seminar (BOS) consisting of pivotal talks and team-building activities.
This welcome ceremony, which took place on Sunday, 17th November 2013 at D-103 & D-105, formalized their integration and acceptance as new members of Arrupe’s young and vibrant student volunteers, ready to take on the role as co-formators by offering assistance to the office in its social formation work all year long. Volunteering work takes three (3) to four (4) years of active engagement with the Arrupe Office, depending on what school year the students applied in. For this school year, and with the inclusion of Batch 43, the total number of Arrupe Vols now reaches ninety-six (96), representing students in different year levels and in various courses.
The BOS kicked off by orienting the students on the social mandate of the Arrupe Office as viewed in the key result areas (KRAs) adapted by the Formation Cluster in the summer of 2012, and as seen in the light of the university’s vision-mission-goals (VMG). Ms. Lilibeth Leh-Arcena, Arrupe Director, also presented to the new batch of student volunteers the fundamental principles and core messages of the different Jesuit General Congregation documents insofar as these reflect the overall work of social formation for which the Arrupe Office is mandated to do. To present the orientational framework for social engagement, Ms. M. Isabel S. Actub, Arrupe’s Coordinator for Communications & Advocacy Program (CAP) gave an input on Authentic Christian Humanism inorder to situate the new batch’s common understanding on what drives their mission for service, action, spirituality and reflection.
Mr. Noriel Rogon, Arrupe’s Coordinator of the Student Servant Leadership Program (SSLP) for which the Arrupe Vols’ activities are lodged under, oriented the new recruits of the nature, characteristics, demands, responsibilities and expectations of volunteer work, what it entails, its overall thrust in the whole work of Arrupe’s social formation work among students, faculty, and external partners. He also presented the line-up of activities of the office where the new batch will be deployed and tapped in the course of their joining the Arrupe Office. As what had been emphasized in the course of the whole-day BOS, being accepted as a bonafide Arrupe Vol is not like joining any student organization or club; rather, it is being given the privilege to serve the university as co-formator of and among students in the overall work of the Arrupe Office.
Fr. Daniel J. McNamara, SJ, Dean of School of Arts & Sciences, presided the Eucharistic Celebration following the talks. True to the theme of the activity, Fr. Dan walked the volunteers through every step of the mass, explaining every aspect of the mass, anchoring every action and process therein in the context of “orientation,” initiating the volunteers into the far greater mystery of the reality of finding God in the mass through signs and symbols.
The BOS was capped by team-building activities that demonstrate the new batch’s sense of camaraderie and bondedness with one another and with the older batches. Representatives of previous batches such as Batch 39, Batch 40, Batch 41 and Batch 42 facilitated and managed the BOS, in coordination with the Arrupe Office staff and personnel. (By M. Isabel S. Actub, Arrupe Communications & Advocacy)