The Christmas season brings a lot of joy and happiness to people all over the world especially here in the Philippines. Google Philippines and Virlanie Foundation partnered together for a holiday project that brings Maker Space Popup to underprivileged kids. This project aims to bring the magic and joy of building and creating cool stuff with tech to kids under the Virlanie Foundation's care. A fun day filled with workshops about tech and arts and crafts which encourage and inspire kids to create and innovate.
Maker Space Pop Up Workshops will teach the kids how to create toys and build games for the holidays and will be held for three consecutive Saturdays November 25, December 2 and 9.
The Maker Space Pop Up Workshop's goal is to have the kids build cool games using the materials provided and the learnings that they get with the mentors. The kids will be divided into groups and have them assign roles to the team. They will also be given ample time to conceptualize, design and build their games and at the end of the activity they will present it to the whole group on how the game is played and how they made it. This is with the help of their Ate's and Kuya's from Google Philippines.
"We are truly honored to engage in this project with Google Philippines. Our beneficiaries are children from marginalized families in the Philippines , some of whoe have been orphaned, neglected, abandoned and abused and are now on the journey to find an empowered version of themselves. This has been a wonderful opportunity for our beneficiaries to explore the wonders of technology with the help of Google Philippines. For our children, this is curiosity meeting imagination. This Christmas, the children are bringing along with them a wonderful memory, from the discovery of new technologies up to the love and care that their bigger brothers and sisters from Google has given them."
-Derik Tabunar, Lead of Donor Relations, Virlanie Foundation
During this event we get to not only watch the kids in their workshops but we are encouraged to play with them and help them with the activities as well which was the fun part for all of us there! I had fun talking to the kids, playing with them on the work areas and also helping them in any way I can for their project. I've had so much fun I almost forgot to vlog some of it! Hahaha
It was such a humbling experience for me as well as it made me realize that I am, at times, still taking things for granted and to see these kids have the time of their lives and getting creative and innovative with their projects is just humbling indeed. They showed a lot of potential and I can't wait to see them grow and be successful in their respective chosen fields..
"The Maker Space Pop-up will allow the kids to create fun and cool stuff with their own hands, and we hope the experience will make them see what they're capable of and that there's so much they can do in the future. We hope they'll be inspired, and that this will be a memorable holiday for them" - Gail Tan, Head of Communications and Public Affairs, Google Philippines.
This is a great initiative from both Google Philippines and Virlanie Foundation. I'm sure the kids will definitely treasure the learnings and memories they made during this event and help them discover more about themselves creatively and who knows, they might be the next Elon Musk or Steve Jobs in the years to come. :)
Coverage by: Kevin Karl Gabutin Jornacion
for Azrael's Merryland Blog
MORE PHOTOS
