Development is Everyone’s Business (Even Yours)

by Jennifer Tan 

The feeding of five thousand is probably one of the most well-known miracles of Jesus. But this story has also been given a different take by some theologians—how a little boy shared his food to someone and how this spurred everyone else to do the same. Think “Pay It Forward” and you get the picture.  

Now that we’ve covered that, let’s go to something else. You see, I’m presently a college senior majoring in Development Studies in the Ateneo de Manila University. I can practically hear the next question in your mind, “Development what?” Practically, 99% of the people I’ve told my course to say the same thing. Since its conception in 1987, this course has been marginalized in the whole university and subjected to many misconceptions. Parents fear sending their children to it because they say “Walang pera diyan.” since it has become common knowledge that development work is equated solely to social work. Other students majoring in other courses feel as if we are so far away from them and that they can never do development work in their own field. 

So why tell all of this? Somehow, Jesus’ disciples who simply wanted to send the people home because there wasn’t enough food sounds similar to people who think they do not have anything to do with development work just because they belong to a different field. I say this because everyone can (and should) actually involve himself or herself with development work.  

I feel for you when there are times you feel totally helpless over everything going on around you because certainly, the huge problems we face have taken a life of their own. Sometimes, it seems that there’s nothing else we can do but bear with them, get on with our lives and fight to survive every day. But you can just as well choose to try and do something, no matter how small the effort may be in your eyes. Development is not something isolated to the experts. It is, in fact, everybody’s business—everyone willing to share oneself and give the future a fighting chance.