“I feel joy in my heart knowing that I can do good for others” - Shin Mira, 11 years old.
Ahna Marie Mira is the Chapter Coordinator of GPW Philippines and she has been actively engaging herself in helping her community in the wake of the global pandemic. Her Family Volunteers for Peace (FVP) Program “Kindness to Community through Family Service” saw participation from her children. With the theme of “Kindness with a Smile”, Ahna’s family served over a thousand families through local community engagement as community pantries to tackle the food crisis for many families brought upon by the Covid-19 pandemic.
For their FVP project, the family even got matching blue t-shirts with ‘Sharing Kindness with Love’ written in them. The whole family engaged themselves in the entire process and were happy to be a part of the project.
“Whenever my mum asks for our help in community service projects; I always feel excited. It's like bonding with my family, makes me closer to my sister and brother too.” - Mecrkx Hyun Phil Mira, 10 years old.
Ahna says that the FVP project has helped strengthen her family’s relationship and has built a family culture of service. The community food pantry started by Ahna in her community is a part of a nationwide food pantry initiative with a sign “Share what you can, get what you need”.
Watch her FVP project video here :-
Ahna shared, “If you want others to do something, you have to show it first by yourself. Every time we show kindness, it emits a positive vibe and inspiration for others”, shares Ahna as her reflection on the project. Ahna further said that the FVP project helped instill family culture of service to her kids as they too joined and contributed from the beginning till the end of the project.
Ahna also talked about her project on “Practice Peacemaking: Strategies for building service and kindness in everyday family lives” back in April in the Session 3 of GPW’s 2021 Webinar Series. You can watch it here.