Sample Articles
World Fair Trade Speech in Germany
Written by: Rexa Marie Mediavilla
Dear friends and supporters of the Fair Trade activities and products of PFTC,
In November of 2013, the super typhoon Yolanda (also known as typhoon “HAIYAN”) devastated most parts of the Philippines, particularly Panay's island. Billions of crops, thousands of houses, and lives were taken away. The greater challenge is how we’ll start over with our lives after the typhoon. Big buildings and businesses were gone too, so the main problem is how to stand after we fall and continue to deal with our lives like normal after the calamity.
One of the provinces which were greatly damaged was Capiz. People here do farming for a living and all of their crops were washed out by Yolanda. After the typhoon people were already hopeless that they will be able to plant again since they don’t have the funds to start over.
Sad to say that during those hardships we were just depending on the help of those individuals whose willing to share for the sake of others. One of those organizations who didn’t hesitate to extend their help to the victims of the typhoon was the Dritte Welt Partners and the donors who initiated the campaign to sponsor a muscovado mill in Capiz which would surely help the province to start over from the sad devastation of Yolanda. Through his effort, everything became possible again. They sponsored everything for the Capiz Muscovado mill/ which includes; the building, truck, land, tractors, facilities, and equipment.
April 7th of this year, the building was successfully inaugurated with the presence of Thomas and Petra Hoyer of DWP, Mr. Jurjen Hansen, and Mr. Stephen Reese from Naturland. During that day all the equipment was tested and they eventually started the production. On that day, you’ll see those bountiful smiles from the people of Capiz and the overflowing gratefulness to the donors of the mill who helped them start again from scratch. They knew for a fact that the mill would be their way to rebuild their lives, TOGETHER. It provides jobs to people and income for the province.
And I am here right now on behalf of those farmers, and victims of Yolanda and Panay Fair Trade Centre, extending our heartfelt gratitude to all the donors and most especially our long-term friend Thomas Hoyer, the director of DWP who proved that helping is not only limited to people with the same race, yet for everyone who needed it. I am really happy to have the chance to speak to you today! I thank you very much for that!
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21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader
My strengths in listening and optimism will help me overcome my struggles in problem solving which will help me succeed as a leader.
As I was reading the book, there’s so many “Oh, that’s the real meaning” moments as I know the definition of the words but the author went into detail which made me realize I’m a work in progress.
The first quality that I consider my strength is LISTENING – during my first month as an acting coach, I was already given a very difficult task. That is to handle 5 experts that were transferred to me from a different team. Just to give a little background about this team, they had escalations to their previous coach because of conflicts and their performance is a challenge for me most especially I am also handling experts who were in residency. My goal is to gain their trust as a foundation of our relationship so I can work with the rest. I spent time talking to them one by one and listened to their side of the story since I heard their previous coach’s side. No judgment, just LISTEN. They opened up during our first interaction and I was just there to listen to how they felt and what went wrong, not because I’m scared to be escalated but I was being a human. These experts just wanted their voice to be heard because they felt like no one listened. They were all on the verge of resigning because of the stress the situation caused them but by simply listening to them, I was able to turn the table around. They are now my Alphas and they help me manage their teammates.
My optimism or positive attitude is what my experts like about me. This kind of job is not easy, let alone leading 15 other people who relies on you and looks up to you. Just last month, our team was challenged because of the surge in Covid and 8 of my experts were tested positive. I message them daily and shared my optimism so they’d feel warmth and look at the brighter side. They are now back on site and I didn’t have any challenge connecting to them because it never stopped even when they were on quarantine.
As I reflect on the book, I realized that problem solving is my weakness. I like being in control of things and when problems arises, I tend to pause and cram. As I talked to my manager, he listens and that’s how I should use my strength in listening too. I should pause, not to cram but to listen and hear out suggestions and resolution then integrate my optimism that there’s a silver lining and I CAN DO IT. I can solve those problems because I’m a leader.
Listening and positive attitude helped me develop a great relationship within my team and to close my gap in problem solving, I will listen and be open to suggestions and be optimistic that there’s a silver lining on every situation. I know my strengths are enough for me to become a successful leader.