Today, I opened a forwarded email message from a friend entitled “You know you are an Ilonggo if…” I was a bit surprised and amused to find out that it was actually from my blog (click here). It took four months for that entry to come full circle since I posted it. Of course I didn’t get credit for it. Fine with me, I’m just happy to share it with my fellow Ilonggos (I would appreciate it if you do acknowledge me though). This incident reminded me of the theory of the Six Degrees of Separation which states that we are no more than six steps away from any person on earth. It’s really a small world and technology is shrinking it everyday.

Let me share my experience. I am a bit of a frustrated UN volunteer, though I haven’t actually applied to be one, not physically. I applied as an UN Online Volunteer and was accepted at Nabuur.com (I think they accept anybody who applies). All you need to do is share your time, knowledge, skills and your contacts. Since it’s volunteer work, you don’t get paid and you work at your own pace. I chose Efut Inwang, a village in Nigeria as my first assignment. There are a lot of volunteers/neighbors (nabuur is Dutch for neighbor) from around the world including Filipinos. The concern of Efut Inwang was on sustainable aquaculture, fish processing and mangrove management. What I did was I researched the internet on studies on the subject and contacted a scientist from SEAFDEC AQD. Some volunteers from the US even pooled some funds to design and build a prototype smokehouse for the assisted association. The design was a product of research through the internet and contributions from the volunteers. Some reference materials were even studies conducted by Filipino scientists. Filipinos are really recognized abroad in the field of fisheries.

Anyway, my point is that through this experience, I was actually interacting with different nationalities in assisting a village that is on the other side of the world. Technology has made it possible for us to share whatever resources we have with other people and also learn from them without risking our life and limbs in the process. It’s a small world indeed and let’s do our share in making it a better one.