ANGEL THOUGHTS
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. —Albert Einstein
What is it like to be president of a socio-civic group like The Zonta?
Zonta, with very few exceptions, is an all-women’s club, thriving in spite of the pandemic and the lockdowns. Originating in America, it now has chapters in many countries and in many cities. In Metro Manila area, there is Zonta Club of Metro Ortigas, led by super-energetic entrepreneur Jennifer Tipton Angeles.
Chatting with the effervescent Jenny can be informative and fun. Her presidency began with the purpose of learning new things and adapting to the changes in the new normal. Face to face meetings turned into Zoom meetings and everything transitioned to digital. Even with the challenge of keeping things together, despite the physical distance, they were able to maintain their members, Jenny told us. In fact they have even recruited five new ones.
“The year 2020 has been a difficult year for a lot of us,” she says. “But as Zontians we uphold our resourcefulness and will to keep fighting. Despite all the problems, we continue on, creating advocacies fit for the current climate.”
The Metro Ortigas Zontians take much pride in their advocacies, such us their comic book project that deals with topics such as teenage pregnancy, providing awareness and moral guidance to the youth. The stories are in an easily digestible manner for them.
“In this digital age, where everyone is on social media, we try our best to do our part in promoting our advocacies in the most efficient way possible, catering to the youth with knowledge that fits how the youth learn in this day and age. Despite being limited to digital events, we made sure that our campaigns continue to be effective by repositioning ourselves and adjusting to where we can help the most.”
In October last year, The Metro Ortigas Zontians celebrated the International Day of the Girl Child with the story of Katarina from Kilala Mo Ba Sila? comics. They launched the online contests and made them available for teenagers aged 15 to 19 years old. There were three contests: Song and Dance, Jingle and Song Writing, and Poster Making. They had 37 entries from different parts of the country, like Iloilo City in the Visayas and Davao City in Mindanao. The event was captured through Zoom with 97 participants and streamed on the club’s Facebook page, where it reached 19,724 people. In February, the story of Diego from the comics was posted on the Facebook page of their partner, Commission on Population and Development, National Capital Region.
“Currently, we are in the process of establishing Z Club with Rizal High School, which was once touted as the ‘largest secondary school in the world’. When the pandemic struck the Philippines and face-to-face school had to be shut down, the Pasig City government helped students and schools adjust to the new normal by providing every student with a tablet to be used for online schooling,” said Jenny. “During these times, jobs were lost, people were fired and had to find new ways to earn a living. Students struggled financially and many couldn’t keep up with the demands of the online class, such as mobile load and internet connection. There were testimonies of students who were unable to submit their requirements and students asking for deadline extensions, due to weeks of financial drought.”
With this, Zonta Club of Metro Ortigas came up with a plan to help students from Rizal High School—the Z Mobile Load. This was a tie-up with the school, which provided 134 scholars with a provision of 300 pesos worth of mobile load per month to continue on with their online classes. In a digital school setting, load is as essential as pens and paper and the lack of it leads to students being unable to further their studies. And so Zonta highly encourages those interested in helping more students with online class provisions to donate to the Z Mobile Load Initiative.
“For Zonta Metro Ortigas, education is one of our top priorities,” stressed Jenny. “And allowing students to pursue their dreams is one of the things we value most. UP PGH College of Nursing has partnered up with us as we will be sponsoring four nursing students, providing them with everything a student would require, from fees to mobilization costs. During this time, where we’ve fallen victims to a single virus, we see how important those in the medical field are. The ones who are still willing to pursue it, despite seeing how difficult it’s been to our medical frontliners need all the support they can get.”
Metro Ortigas is also happily engaging in activities that help bond all Zonta Clubs together with activities such as the Zonta Rose Day.
The comics project continues to inform students from grades 7 to 12 about the risks of teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and irresponsible social behaviors. The Zontians are looking for donors on animating the stories for a wider reach. Please join them.
It also helps that Jenny has a very supportive husband, businessman Christian Angeles, with whom she has three lovely daughters, Cammy and twins Chelsea and Kirsten.