#StartUpJournal1- DreamWeave for SeniorHigh.PH: The Tell-All Story of Memory and Dream
It’s more than a year already since our team DreamWeave was conceived for the second-run of Benilde Prize, a social innovation competition organized by De La Salle College of Saint Benilde. It was there that our team was fortunate enough to be granted a seed funding and a mentorship program to fully materialize our vision.
In one of the mass that I have attended, the priest was on point enough to say, “To flourish a community, one shall not forget the memory and the dream.” With the mission of flourishing a community, I ought to tell you our story, anchored to both our memory and dream.
The Memory
The picture of being on one of stages in Hotel Benilde Maison De La Salle is still very vivid until now. I can still clearly see our faces by the night of March 9, 2016, those “ugly” faces brought by so much stress, excitement and overwhelming support of those people present there.
Few nights before that night were also roller-coaster. There were times that our confidence were being heightened by the idea that we are one of the teams that were fortunate enough to attend to that social business boot camp, but there were also times that our mentors seemed to question us getting to that point of the competition.
That whole idea seemed to engulf my whole system that didn’t allow me to be one of those to represent our team for the final pitch, the ultimate measure to bag the award. That was the very first time that I had a mental block, like a total one. However, with so much divine grace, we still were able to pull off that five-minute pitch, without me delivering my part, but Phoebe backing it up instead.
But that night is a just a chunk of the whole memory that I have. There are still many stories worth-to tell, like the immersion that we had in one of the communities that inspired us, like the story of us being left by our plane going back to Naga, like the story of conflict between friends in deliberating who to represent the team, and many more.
Keeping in mind those memories has always stayed me awoke at night.
The Dream
In a lot of pivots we made, until this very moment, we remain faithful to the shared dream, and that is to guide every Filipino youth as they achieve their dreams as well, not only making them believe to their own capability of doing so, but also to aid them get through the barriers present that avoid them to reach it.
With this inspiration, the name “DreamWeave” came to the picture, which until now still carries the same dream, which brought SeniorHigh.PH to its mission of building a community for the senior high graduates, academe and job providers.
Here’s a little background story to attest why we keep on dreaming for and with the youth:
We’ve met Jeboy, Jam, Jane, Joel, Ericka and some of their friends in one our desperate search of finding graduates of senior high program (since some of schools early implemented it). They are graduates of Horticulture and also passers of National Certification Level III of Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). They have always wanted to pursue their education to tertiary level, but no state university or college near them are actually available to allow them to enroll. This concerns them so much which led them to look for some employment opportunities for the meantime, just not to kill the knowledge that they have with their passion in agriculture.
SeniorHigh.PH dreams with these youth.
Building those memories and dreams will never came to its realization without the people who have encouraged and believed in us, more than we usually does. First on the list is Benilde Prize, which is on its third run that would start accepting applications on September 1, 2017. For more information about the program, visit them at benildeprize.com.
