Daily Archives: August 20, 2021

By: Roland Reyes

Prior to the launch of our internship, my colleagues and I, have managed to communicate with the organization for an orientation about the activities. The organization sent a DevCom alumna, Melvin Nuñez to be our internship supervisor. What started as a purely business manner of arrangement forged into a deeper connection motivated by the pursuit of HLAF’s goals.

The orientation proved itself to be fruitful as our supervisor stressed the primary objectives of the organization. We listened in awe as the video presentation showcased the organization’s flagship programs and its services extended to the vulnerable groups within the country’s correctional institutions.

The first deliverable assigned to us was to formulate a communication plan that guarantees our activities for the span of our OJT. The planning part of it was tricky for we had but little knowledge of the processes within the organization. Nevertheless, the motivation to showcase our honed skill for the synthesis of contributions prevailed. 

The first week arrived and we have already spent an all-nighter on the conceptualization, planning, and narrative of our communication plan. Tired, yet motivated, we were granted a meeting with the Executive Director of HLAF, Iyok. Iyok (as he stressed that we should refer him as such) is a lawyer-in-practice with magnanimous experience in project management and development-oriented advocacies. He elaborated prior confusions on the systematic processes within the organization.

Along with Jannela Magtibay, a colleague in the internship, we designed and articulated key points in our presentation. I managed to present highlights of our presentation and as a team, received a remarkable response as we filled in visual gaps in their communication platforms. Aside from the delegation of activities, we conceived additional deliverables assigned by Mr. Nuñez. I added to my list of outputs an updated branding strategy that highlights the key features of our advocacy plans in the available social media spaces of the organization.

During the course of our internship, we were met with numerous tasks that add up to our workload. This was not a surprise given the current standing of NGOs in the country in hindsight to the necessity of such organizations in uplifting the different sectors of the nation. Our meager outputs serve as fuel for the engagement of our communication agendas further adding up these meaningful transitions to the accomplishments of the organization as a whole.

I devised a process of branding strategy that takes the lead in our tasks in relation to this prospect. From the evaluation, up to execution, we aligned the visual properties of every publication material, social media content, and output thumbnails according to this discipline.

On the sidelines, we were communicative assistants covering projects and events for the organization. Since most of these tasks were done virtually, previous engagements allow us to do the documentation after work hours with the help of pre-recorded zoom meetings. In all regards, despite this task being tedious, it improved my writing ability furthering to adapt conciseness and accuracy necessary during these documentation opportunities.

The month of June breezed through as we were assigned one task after the other. It takes a huge step for me to be able to build confidence in myself as the organization trusted me with important business tasks. This includes delivering an introduction to students from De La Salle University-Manila as they take on their research projects in partnership with HLAF. To speak on behalf of an organization and its three-fold flagship programs and advocacies is a feat to remember, after all.

The second month of our internship was less overwhelming. By this time we already have a grasp of our role in furthering the organization’s goals. Meanwhile, I am still continuing the processes of the branding amplification that we started last month. The month of July presented fewer documentation opportunities for me but additional write-ups and layout design to add to my design processes.

I formulated a branding peripheral that includes key points for the celebration of the foundation’s 20th anniversary. We were part of a team communicating with the entirety of the organization in this aspect. During staff meetings, we solidified our stance in developing the visual appeal of the brand. This gained traction as soon as we set up due to the new principles of design that we applied in our deliverables. Our team of DevCom interns presented our plans for the following weeks in retrospect to the previous arrangements we have learned last month.

Staff meetings are considered very important as these keep the whole organization posted on the happenings of each department. I witnessed how direct and eager each staff member is in their specific fields be it a paralegal officer, a field worker, a lawyer, or an intern like us. Each cog of this development-oriented gear strengthened the advocacies of the foundation leading to sustainable outputs in jails and institutions along respective regions.

Our part in this endeavor is to ensure that the activities prepared, planned, and executed by the organization gain traction on social media. This is vital for the outreach of support both financially and morale and is a trusted opportunity for additional partnerships. 

One specific highlight is the partnership with De La Salle College of St. Benilde forged by the organization. HLAF, as directed by Iyok, entrusted the communications and redirection of tasks to us DevCom interns. It still fills my heart with a sense of responsibility when Iyok mentioned his trust in our palate of branding and that we will relay the same principles to multimedia students on behalf of HLAF.

As our internship draws nearer, we found ourselves wanting more of this job experience as mere 200 hours doesn’t make the cut in an exposure. Nonetheless, for the coming weeks, I invested in building a timeframe for my deliverables that has taken a toll due to the processes involved therein. One specific learning experience was the value of adaptability in a fast-paced organization. The key motive in revisions of publication materials necessitates clear, concise communication to our supervisor to avoid delays in production.

I also had the wonderful chance to host a podcast initiative started by my peers discussing the highlights of HLAF to potential listeners. This communication peripheral allows us to master the technology and apply the principles of trusted podcast series in our future work.

In this particular episode, I discussed the rights of PDLs at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Guided by research, I learned that in a recent tally of PDLs in the Philippines, BuCor reported that there are 48,284 PDLs in the country as of May 2021. In contrast to the -2.34% increase rate last year, the number of PDLs increased by 0.04%. 

In this light, it is important to note that in a recent speech given by Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta in Tarlac State University, he said that hearings were taking place and a total of 192,444 videos conference hearings was done from May 4 of last year to February 5 of this year. The hearings have a success rate of 88%. As a result, he said up to 122,178 PDLs were released.

This is proactive in the pursuit of HLAF in aiding the gears towards jail decongestion. As part of the organization’s values to empower and capacitate duty-bearers, the community, and LGU, HLAF has been active in the goal objective of alleviating the circumstances in these jails.

I communicated these facts to Mr. Melvin Caymo, the chief paralegal officer of the Jail Decongestion program of the organization. He shared multiple insights on the role of HLAF in furthering these advocacies in spite of the pandemic. He even ended on a good motivational note featured in the title of our podcast.

The internship was a fruitful experience and it geared me for my future ventures in development-oriented work. I see myself fit in this environment where living meant alleviating the living conditions of the people I serve. That perhaps must be the ultimate goal.

By: Julius Mojares

During our internship application period, I told myself I was doing it only for compliance. I was not really putting much thought into it. I could have sent out resumes to companies I did not know at all. Luckily, I have friends who introduced me to HLAF or Humanitarian Legal Assistance Foundation. A law firm. Or an NGO. Whatever, I thought. I had not realized that what I was getting myself into was a roller coaster ride.

During our first week, it was all meh. Meetings. Event documentation. Piece of cake, I thought. But after one meeting with the executive director, that was when it dawned on me: they are expecting so much from us. They made us do a comprehensive Communication Plan. Not like the one we did in our course. They want a comprehensive and well-articulated communication plan. 

So, that night, we spent twelve hours collaborating with our ideas, plans,  and congregations. It was stressful. We even had to produce a PPT presentation. We worked until six in the morning and then prepared for the presentation at eight. It was exhausting.

Now, why am I telling you this?

I would go back to my first sentence: I was doing it for compliance. If I could, I would have just signed up for it and then slack off. But the thing is this company where I got myself into is not just a company. It was an NGO that advocates for the rights of persons deprived of liberty and it is something that is just close to my heart.

That’s when I told myself that when I write for this company, I would pour my heart out. When I directed our company podcast, I poured my heart out. I have learned to love the company, its advocacies, and I have learned how things work in a real-life job. 

To keep it short, HLAF acquainted me with what it is like to actually work. 

What we do in HLAF

As communication interns, we are tasked to produce the communication materials HLAF use in their social media page. There were days when we would attend meetings or events in which we will write a news article. Or a narrative report to be sent to funders.

We also produced publicity materials and infographics. I am not that skilled in terms of design so my role in this particular project is to plan the content and the captions. 

Also, we produced the company’s first-ever podcast. We titled it AMPLIFY. I spearheaded this project with the help of my co-interns and supervisor. I wrote scripts, revision after revision. And by the end of our internship period, we were able to produce three episodes.

Our tasks do not end when we are off the clock. There were days when our supervisor would ask us to produce urgent content in the middle of the night. We understood, however, that it was part of the job.

Who I worked with

We were four interns. Jacob, Jelai, Roland, and myself. We have known each other for almost four years now. We have been working in the same group ever since we met in college.

Before the internship started, we had already decided to apply in the same company and live under the same roof. Despite the pandemic, we pushed through with our plan on renting an apartment in Alangilan, Batangas City.

Living together had a lot of advantages. We can easily coordinate with each other. We can also help each other out whenever the tasks are overwhelming. Roland and I shared the same room while Jacob and Jelai shared the other room. Whenever we feel down or tired, we can always find diversion by sitting together with our coffee and garlic bread.

I realized, working is a lot more fun when you are doing it with your friends. Now, I wonder if I could have survived it without them. Probably not.

What I learned

My internship with HLAF taught me a lot of lessons I will never forget.

Working with lawyers and communication professionals, I have learned that it is not enough to have excellent communication skills. One must need to understand that every company has its own voice that it uses and as communication interns, we need to learn how to speak their language. Their voice. 

Also, I learned how important design thinking is. We were taught to harness every idea we have before putting it into paper. Before any of our works had been approved, they had to go through processes of revisions. Of course, it was difficult to accept at first but over time, I realized it was part of the growth we were seeking at this internship, to begin with.

Furthermore, the lesson I will always bring with me is the lesson I learned from the PDLs I interviewed. They taught me how to value freedom and not let anyone take it away. Their stories were very touching I could hardly write about them. I wanted to be as careful as possible when I wrote about them.

Outside the box.

Like I said, at first, it was only for compliance. But working as an intern in HLAF challenged me. And I took it. I learned volumes of knowledge and skills and I couldn’t be any more thankful.

For me, my internship experience was a way to get out of my comfort zone. I grew not only as a development communication practitioner but also as a human being. What I learned in HLAF, I will take with me from here on forward. Like a sword. Like a knight ready to conquer.

By: Jannela Mae Magtibay

From blended learning to online access in education, the world of digital and computerized technologies are now reshaping the learning experiences of the students amidst the pandemic. With the new modes of education, these students started to learn within the premises of their homes without being compromised on their studies. These events were considered as a huge adjustment for everyone. Although it has brought its fair share of benefits and difficulties to the majority, those who are affected are doing their best to comply with such changes. Hence this approach was also implied in internships and on-the-job training. Guided by their respective curriculums, each program rendered the required working hours into a work-from-home setup.

Enrolled under the BS Development Communication program, we were given adequate access to choosing the company we want to work with during our 200-hour internship. And as a future development practitioner, I decided to apply as an intern in Humanitarian Legal Assistance Foundation, Inc. to harness my skills in graphic and layout design as well apply the values of being purposive, pragmatic, and value-laden.

For the first week of my internship, I was tasked together with my colleagues—Jacob Esguerra, Julius Mojares, and Roland Reyes to present our proposed communication plan to the Executive Director of HLAF. Together with Mr. Melvin Nunez, our OJT supervisor as well as HLAF’s Communications committee, we expounded our plans and proposed various projects that will cover the upcoming weeks of our internship. Given the specific advocacies inclined with a specialized community of individuals, we learned that HLAF seeks to provide development in some of the most underserved areas of the country. And with that as regard, we aimed to introduce new concepts of audience engagement inclined with the sustainability of our endeavors as development communicators; and establish additional opportunities for organizational support where our programs, projects, and outreach services are distinguishable in the 21st century and a devcom perspective.

As we have tackled in our communication plan, our team aims to amplify the company branding, upgrade the quality of publicity materials, and build a wider network by utilizing modern audience-engagement platforms and still preserve the values and advocacies of HLAF. Such modifications can be done through amplification of the brand using a revamped color palette that will maintain the theme of our core values, typography, and more; updating publication materials for the social media accounts, webinars, and other communication efforts to establish a more grounded public appeal highlighting HLAF’s vision and mission; and integrate available communication spaces such as podcasts and virtual hangouts to appeal to the different sectors of our society. Through these objectives, I’ve learned how to incorporate the principles of modernity into a specific style that will fit the demands of the company.

Likewise, we also attended a Child Protection webinar in Virac, Catanduanes which aimed to raise awareness of children’s rights in various aspects. To sum up the week, we passed a revised version of our communication plan afterward and documented a 4-day pre-recorded Flipchart webinar.

The second week started with presenting an accomplishment report in the company’s staff meeting. As the team’s graphic and visual artist, I prepared different t-shirt and mug designs for the 20th commemorative anniversary of the company. I also prepared publicity material templates to revamp the social media branding and aligned the concepts with the existing guidelines of HLAF.

The third week mainly focused on the revisions of the proposed template for the publicity materials that will be published in the company’s social media accounts. Moreover, I was also tasked to create an artwork for a Feature article about the establishment of HLAF’s FRED Kamustahan Group which aims to connect former PDLs amidst the pandemic.

As a continuation of the tasks from the previous weeks, we were assigned to attend a presentation of BA Multimedia Arts students from De LaSalle – College of Saint Benilde. As an official partner of HLAF, they are tasked to assist us to improve the branding guidelines and website of the company. Although we are also students ourselves, HLAF entrusted us to lead the students from LaSalle to help them incorporate the values of the company in their outputs and adjust them from a devcom perspective.

HLAF taught me that organizing projects takes great courage and doing it during the pandemic takes magnanimity. The second week of July focused on one of their biggest projects—BCPC Congress 2021 which acknowledges the hard work of our duty-bearers and the efforts they put into all the programs and projects they are conducting for the protection of our children. I was tasked to create various publicity materials that will highlight the said event to increase the audience and participants’ engagement. Likewise, I was also assigned in making pub mats for Jail Decongestion Program activities in La Union Provincial Jail, Lucena City Jail, and Roxas District Jail and artwork for our feature article.

My internship for the third week of July focused on creating pubmats for another illustration for our second story of reintegration. It was then followed by creating a poster for a nationwide webinar in the basic child orientation protection program which I drew various elements and integrated them all with the core values of HLAF. Moreover, we also published posts regarding Quezon City Jail’s female dorm basic orientation seminar and case consultation, and Makati City Jail paralegal training.

The last week of my internship was hectic. I was tasked to create a poster that will show the official HLAF email for queries and invitations. I also created a pubmat that features HLAF’s Internship FAQs, Donation FAQs. Likewise, Mr. Nunez asked me to provide a digital ID for every HLAF staff. He also asked me to transfer the designs and templates that I made to Canva which he will use for future postings after we leave the company. In addition, I also created artworks for each article that will be published soon on HLAF’s official Facebook page.

Although it is such a waste that the internship only lasted for a month, I would still like to acknowledge how we managed to learn and experience various things in just a short period. My stay in HLAF made me realize how significant my skills are in the professional field and I should still pursue graphic and layout design with inclinations in the devcom field.

By: Jacob Esguerra

Sayang.

I have come to hate the word sayang. I do not want to feel regretful all my life just because of a wrong decision. Rendering my 200 hours at the Humanitarian Legal Assistance Foundation, Inc. (HLAF), I can proudly say that I did something good and great at the same time.

Looking for a company to render a 200-hour on-the-job training had not been easy for me. When you do not know what you want to do in life, deciding becomes really hard.

Luckily, HLAF found me. Yes. I did not find HLAF, it found me. To cut the story short, a friend of mine recommended HLAF to me. I stalked its Facebook page and what they are doing in their organization caught my interest. I wrote a letter of intent, sent my resume together with my portfolio, then the rest is history.

My first week went really well. It was as amazing as the advocacies of HLAF. I had the opportunity to meet our training supervisor, Mr. Melvin F. Nuñez, who is an alumnus of BatStateU BS DevCom. Together with my co-interns, we also met with the HLAF’s Executive Director, Atty. Rommel Alim Abitria, who is so cool and super nice. We presented the initial draft of our communications plan to him, which summarizes the target deliverables we need to accomplish throughout the internship. We also attended several advocacy training organized by the organization in which we were tasked to document.

Those training became our starting point to know more about the organization. The second week was a bit challenging for me. It was my first time to interview a former PDL (persons deprived of liberty) for an article included in our deliverables. It was hard for me because I had to be cautious with my word choice and the way I talk. After all, we never want to bring up trauma or dig in the past they probably want to forget. Good thing, our supervisor never fell short in reminding me and my co-interns of the proper approach to talk to them. It was an amazing experience because it is not every day that we get to talk to people we thought we could not talk to.

I also had the opportunity to meet other staff of HLAF, Kuya Wendell Manaloto and Kuya Peter Olea, who are both officers of the Focused Reintegration of Ex-Detainees (FRED) Program of HLAF. I also interviewed them to know more about the FRED Kumustahan Group which was the subject of the first article I wrote for the organization.

The third week had been exhausting yet fruitful, as we had to finish several tasks assigned to us. We attended a consultation meeting of the ALG Foundation wherein we helped the members of the group improve their designs and content for their publication materials. We also managed to finish the report of the children’s code consultation of HLAF together with the province of Catanduanes. Also, we were able to attend a consultation meeting with the second-year Multimedia Arts students of De La Salle – College of St. Benilde for their HLAF Design Communication collateral.

Moreover, I was able to finish my article about the FRED Kumustahan Group. This FRED Kumustahan Group is simply a group chat in Messenger which serves as a support system for the former PDLs. In this article, I realized how hard it is to be a former PDL, and how HLAF continuously and consistently works towards helping them improve their lives.

During the fourth week, I had the chance to attend a courtesy meeting with the warden of the La Union Provincial Jail. During the meeting, HLAF staff and law student interns introduced the Jail Decongestion Program of the organization and what are its objectives. Afterward, I wrote a news article about it which is now available on HLAF’s Facebook page. I was also able to write two more news articles this week about the Lucena City Jail – Female Dorm Pre-Release Formation Session and Basic Orientation Seminar and Case Consultation of Roxas District Jail. These news articles are now available on the organization’s Facebook page. My FRED Kumustahan Group article finally got published, too. Productive week, indeed.

My fifth week had been positively draining. Meetings piled up so fast, I had articles to finish, plus the sudden tasks given by our supervisor. But it felt good, honestly. It felt good to know that you are contributing to achieving the objectives of the organization. I had the privilege to interview a jail officer from San Juan City, a Vice-Mayor from Catanduanes, a social worker from Good Neighbors International – Philippines, a principal, a barangay secretary, and a law practitioner. Simply, from different walks of life. I am just thankful for the opportunity to have interviewed them. The interviews will be used for the articles included in our deliverables. I was also able to write another news article about the Basic Orientation Seminar and Case Consultation that happened in Quezon City Jail.

The last week of our internship had been nothing but fulfilling. I was tasked to write several news articles about the five-day online paralegal training for jail officers. These articles are now available on the Facebook page of HLAF. On July 21, I attended the Bicol Regionwide Advocacy Session which aims to provide children from Region V and its neighboring provinces with basic knowledge of their rights as children. After the session, I was tasked again to write a news article. I was also able to attend the meeting of psych and law interns for their collaboration for a nationwide mental health webinar. The meeting was documented and our supervisor again tasked me to write a news article.

Having all those said and done, I can confidently say that I have learned and gained a lot because of HLAF. I got exposed to what awaits me in the future after finishing my degree. I have seen how the world works outside the four corners of the university. I have witnessed how challenging it is to survive a day knowing that your work haunts you even after working hours.

In a span of more than one month, I feel like I did something meaningful for the community and myself. My internship at HLAF is something that my future self will thank me for. Undeniably, it was an exhausting journey. But it was beautiful. It has a taste of magic. Hindi sayang