A Love Story

This is a love story, my own love story and I am writing this on a very significant day of my life. Today, June 21, 2012 marks exactly a year after I took the board exam for social workers. Thus, writing this account came in a perfect timing. This is truly a good venue for me to reflect what had transpired after a year.  This is also a good venue to look back on the experiences acquired and lessons learned in the past years that had made me appreciate more the profession I had chosen: social work. 

I am Richelle H. Verdeprado. I was born on January 20, 1991 in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental.  I came from a poor family and both of my parents did not finished schooling. We could not even afford to buy our basic needs. There are so many things and experiences that were denied to me and to us. But the reasons that made me feel powerless are the same reasons that made me feel capable enough. Those reasons inspired me to exert more efforts and to value whatever I have within my reach. I could not just worry about myself but also for my family. I became aware that sometimes my mother cannot stay with us for weeks because she has to work as a farmer in the distant mountains; that there would really be tough times when my father cannot bring home even a single peso and that empty pots and plates were true. So that was what poverty means- no new clothes, no allowance, and no electricity. Yet going to school penniless or studying for tomorrow’s examination under the street posts outside the convenience of our house (because we failed to pay the bill) were not reason to take the wrong road. I know that my situation was not the worst on Earth. The saddest day of my life came when I was fifteen years old. My father died. I was filled with fears and regrets. The future even turned more unclear. But I have to move on.

With my cousin, older sister and my mother

My future becomes uncertain because even though my schooling was fine, a scholarship would still not guarantee an easy college life for me. While most of my classmates were full of dreams and plans, there was I, unsure of everything. What course will I take up? Who will finance for me? Then, it was time for Him to work out His plans. I remembered praying that night nine days after my graduation. I could not find for exact words to say because in the first place, I don’t know what I’m exactly asking for. That was my last night home for God will be opening a new door for me and things will never be the same again. I was helped by the Calvary Chapel Children’s Home, an NGO in Bacolod City with a residential home catering to more than 150 children with various needs and coming from different backgrounds. It was in there that I had that there is a course known as social work. I stayed there for almost seven months. Then, during the second semester until I graduated in college I stayed with the Tertiary Capuchin Sisters of the Holy Family Home. The nuns were also mostly social workers.

In my college graduation speech, I remember saying, “In my life, I have experienced staying in several houses, asking the help of so many people for a shelter, before finding a true home with the sisters. If I stopped along the way, just because somebody discouraged or misjudged me or just because all I had was three pesos in my pocket or just because I did not have school shoes to wear, then I would have not given justice to the life that has been extended. Don’t give up and be easily shaken because there are so many more in life that are not yet revealed to you- things, events, people and feelings you will only attain, experience, meet and feel if and only if, you will survive what you are handling now…”

I felt a need to look back on few memories of my still young life before I’ll be able to reflect on my social work experience now because I think such will inspire me more and convince me that events in my life is really leading me to become a social worker. I remember during our graduation a line I heard which may not be written this way but spoke of a similar message. It says, “embrace your profession, the profession you have worked hard for several years, the profession you have fought for and will live for, the profession you will you die for.” Such words were so strong, so powerful and so passionate: just like love. This leads me into a realization.  The moment we began to feel that we wanted to spend our time and our talents in knowing more about our profession and in acquiring skills so that we know how to practice it better, we do so not because we have to but because we have already fallen in love with it. Our profession becomes our vocation. It is not just like love anymore, it is already love. It is love in its truest form.

The instrument that social workers used a lot are our own selves and so we must be aware of who we are and what process we are going through so that we will be able to help more our clients.  When I started working in Coalition Against Trafficking in Women-Asia Pacific, I was remembering the passion of my fellow youth especially young women in pursuing their limitless dreams. I was remembering the vast number of the youth especially those coming from the poor provinces that are pushed to take the risks of leaving their hometowns in search for a better future for themselves and their family. Until now, I am remembering how the dire economic situation of our country obliged them to start working young or to give up their schooling. I am remembering how many of them were deceived by traffickers who take advantage of their vulnerability--- how many of them find themselves trapped into modern forms of human slavery, of forced labor, of debt bondage, of prostitution.

I am also remembering how the systems of patriarchy, of the concepts that men should use women, of inequality and commoditization of women’s body have continuously victimized us and made us more exposed to trafficking and all forms of exploitation that goes with it. Those systems are huge and have penetrated our lives for so long. Those systems are our enemies and so we must battle against them if we want to win our fight against trafficking. I had fallen in love in pursuing our advocacy, but just like many other love stories, it was not also a swift journey. My love too, has been put into so many tests and challenges.

Every person has an inherent power that may be characterized as life force, transformational capacity, life, energy, spirituality, regenerative potential and healing power.  The act of empowering re-awakens or stimulates someone’s own natural power.   This is one of the essential assumptions in the strength perspective in social work. It is also from that perspective in which I had seen myself as a young social work practitioner. In the process of empowering others, that is waking up their dreams, inspiring them to pursue such dreams and to decide to work hard for those dreams, my own power is also being stimulated. My dreams are also awaken, my energy also being stirred. Such power is sustained because it does not come from me personally. It is sustained because it comes from God. Social work is responding to God’s invitation to be a light to others. It is a power that gives and heals because it comes from God who gives and heals. Thanks be to God for a very fruitful first year as a practitioner! I know He will continue to be there in the years to come as I continue to journey in this vocation I had fallen in love with. I know this love is meant to endure and triumph.