Silliman students champion sustainability through Smart Creativity Camp

PLDT's wireless unit Smart Communications Inc., together with Silliman University, continues to promote sustainability among the youth through the Smart Creativity Camp.

Smart recently teamed up with SU's Fine Arts Department to hold a three-day Creativity Camp at the Romeo Ariniego Art Gallery, to inspire young people to become champions for sustainability and environmental awareness while fostering their creativity.

"This campaign is inspired by the youth's efforts to contribute to a more environmentally friendly world, such as carrying their metal flasks to school rather than always consuming beverages in plastic bottles. We took the camp to various schools nationwide to encourage more youth to practice sustainability while celebrating their passion for the arts and promoting student wellness," said Antonette Orpilla, senior manager, Smart Go-To-Market and Subscriber Management.

The camp was held in time with the university's Genesis Week and Hibalag Festival 2023, adding more meaning to SU's school year opening activities and Founders' Day celebrations.

"The project was able to facilitate a shared space for students from different colleges and departments where they could forge connections through art-making. The fellow-feeling and sense of community that this encourages are essential to the pursuit of sustainability," said W. Don Flores, Fine Arts Department chair at SU.

SU students expressed their commitment to sustainability through the designs they created on their metal beverage containers. Manta Cristina Macabali, an instructor at the Fine Arts Department, also delivered a talk on art patterns and designs to guide students in enhancing their creations.

The students with the best tumbler designs and their respective organizations received special prizes from Smart.

"The change that sustainability requires is only possible if we understand that the call toward it is not only directed to us as individual makers but, more significantly, to us as persons who are part of a larger whole. Through community, we share anxieties and hopes. By making art side by side, as Smart Creativity Camp has encouraged, we are able to cultivate this sense of a shared longing for a better, more sustainable world," added Flores.

The Smart Creativity Camp is part of the PLDT group's broad range of activities that empower and build bridges of collaboration across sectors and communities toward a sustainable future.