RALITZA A. SURIBAS

Educational background:

Tertiary Education

Velez College - B.S. Occupational Therapy

F. Ramos St. Cebu City, Cebu

August 2019 - Present

Secondary Education

Saint Theresa’s College of Cebu

21 Juana Osmeńa St, Cebu City, Cebu

S.Y 2017 - 2019

Saint Francis Academy

Sta. Cruz, Balamban, Cebu

S.Y 2013 - 2016

Primary Education

Araneta Learning Center

Sta. Cruz, Balamban, Cebu

S.Y 2007 - 2013

Achievements:

• College

Velez College - 2nd Year, 2nd Semester, Dean’s Lister

Velez College - 2nd Year, 1st Semester, Dean’s Lister

Velez College - 1st Year, 1st Semester, Dean’s Lister

• Senior High School

Saint Theresa’s College of Cebu - SY. 2018-2019, with Honors

Saint Theresa’s College of Cebu - S.Y. 2017-2018, with Honors

Saint Theresa’s College of Cebu - CINEHIGH Shortfilm Festival 2019Best Film ROUGE (Writer)

Service Awardee - Teresyanang Maalagaron Service (2018-2019)

Service Awardee - RCY Service (2017-2018)

• Junior High School

Saint Francis of Academy - S.Y. 2016-2017, with Honors

Saint Francis of Academy - S.Y. 2015-2016, with Honors

Saint Francis of Academy - S.Y. 2014-2015, with Honors

Saint Francis of Academy - S.Y. 2013-2014, with Honors

• Elementary

Academic Honor Roll (Grade 3 - Grade 6), with Honors

My experience as an OT student in Velez College:

Being an OT student in Velez College was a bitter-sweet experience for me — academically and personally. We all know that Velez is an exhausting place to be and that is the unarguable truth. It is wearing, thankless, and can be scarcely rewarding. But, it is also the place that has molded competent professionals in various fields of medicine. They are known to provide quality of education to its students and nurtured their passion and skills. However, the most challenging part of being an OT student in Velez is the journey going there — to becoming one of the best in our field. Which was made more difficult by the pandemic because we had to transition to virtual learning for two years and we are now products of online class with very minimal in-person experience. As an OT student, I know exactly how impossible it can feel to go on trying when I am exhausted straight through to the soul. When the cheerful ideals I once promised to myself seem tired and hopeless at some point. But I always beg myself when I'm close to giving up to give it one more try, with feelings. And maybe, that's why I'm still here, thriving, because I know within myself that this very challenging experience of being a student is an opportunity for me to improve, learn, and grow. In a more academic context, Velez has really helped me in shaping my character as a student. Looking back and experiencing this random and unexpected moment of disbelief where I take a moment to be mindful of what is going on around me, I simply can’t believe that I have gotten this far. That I was that person who has done these things, taken these classes in this school, and made a life for myself. More to that, being an OT student in Velez made me realize that I am capable of more than I know — letting me know my willingness to provide service to others without me knowing that I have that kind of person inside me.

My Component:

For our Community-Based Health and Rehabilitation class, together with my other group members, I was assigned under the Mental Health and Humanitarian Crisis component and later on, the Mental Health component collaborated with the Livelihood component.

Planning CBH&R Programs:

Although gathering data and planning for our program was quite a challenge for us, we still managed to get it through. When we were to look for a community we wanted to help, E-Hope was suggested and right away we agreed within our group that they are the community we wanted to collaborate with for the whole duration of our CBH&R class. We right away decided to meet the people behind E-Hope, hence the stakeholder’s meeting. During our first stakeholder’s meeting, I was one of the notetakers during the interview for our group. I also helped in arranging and outlining what we wanted to know from the E-Hope organization in order for us to have a clearer picture of what they do and how we can propose their community to our instructors and to the class.

It was a meaningful and heartwarming experience for me because I wasn’t really aware of their organization until then. What they do for the families and children with cancer was something that really touched my heart because they are doing it without expecting something in return. I was honestly so happy that E-Hope was the community that my classmates and the instructors decided to pick for the implementation of our CBH&R program. I was also the one who decoded and reported the survey results so I got to know the parents, staff, and children in E-Hope in a more personal context based on their answers from our survey questions.

My experience in designing a CBH&R program:

For my role during in designing our CBH&R program, I was included in the team that focuses on designing the flow or outline of the program. We tend to lean or focus more on Mental Health and Humanitarian Crisis and we made sure that it is designed and catered towards the children in E-Hope. However, we did not just limit our program there, we also made sure that the parents and staff are included because they can also be affected with mental health concerns knowing the situation that they are in. We also made self-esteem worksheets for the children.

Upon designing our program, we really made sure that we target the area of concern for the children of E-Hope particularly in their mental health. One of the social workers from E-Hope said that children after their chemotherapy treatment are not in their best self afterwards and undergo some massive physical changes as a side effect of their medication. I was really downhearted on their behalf because at such a young age they have to undergo that kind of struggle in their life. However, I also felt fortunate that even though that is their situation, we are here to help them and make a program for them.

Implementing CBH&R Programs:

During the implementation of our program, we were in collaboration with the livelihood group. I was under the marketing team but since we only market their products after the implementation, my group members and I decided that we should also focus on designing the program flow, powerpoint, and etc. I was also the one who made certificates of appreciation for the guest speaker, staff, parents, and children in E-Hope for their participation in our program. Afterwards, I was also who outlined and made the market template for the products (totebags) that are to sell online.

It was a great experience for me because we managed to implement that kind of program to the families and children in E-Hope. “It’s the Tote that Counts” was a success and it was a fun, meaningful, and an eye-opening experience for me. I also got to learn a lot of things and realized how much we made an impact on their lives. As someone who also assigned and handling the certificates, the guest speaker really message a member of our group that she opted to get a copy of the certificate from us because she said she wanted to “flex” it online because she is able to give out opportunity for the parents in E-Hope who wanted to make extra income. Moreso, the totebags that we were about to sell got even sold out before we even posted it. We were honestly so happy about it. Overall, it was a very heartwarming experience for me.

As an occupational therapist student, I have always been in awe of our scope of practice and how unique our profession is. We can work and be functional in various settings and with that, my takeaway from this class is that: it is as equally as important to provide services to the people in the community, not just to individuals. For the entirety of this course, it still amazes me that as OTs, we have the opportunity to develop community programs for the people, and for the community as a whole. For the whole duration of this course, we learned how to adapt to the situations, especially because program planning and implementation was never easy. We rarely meet for this class and we still managed to pull it through, hence I believed that along the way, we grew, evolved, and became responsible individuals. I also would like to believe that we became more creative because of this course.

During my first year in Velez, we had a center visit and I was fortunate enough that the center we visited was a community based rehabilitation center and since I already have a gist of what OTs do in CBH&R. It was in 2019 but I can still vividly remember what the OT interns shared to us during that time and I know within myself that it was something that I wanted to experience too. Right now, in the year 2022, at first it feels sad and unfortunate that we cannot experience such things due to the pandemic. I thought that it could have been so much fun and a momentous opportunity to be able to visit communities and conduct our planned programs there. Thankfully, we were still able to implement our program virtually and at the near end some members were able to conduct an in-person activity to our wonderfully selected community which was E-Hope. I am also grateful that the E-Hope community gladly accommodated and welcomed us to their place and we can really tell that they also want us to be working and collaborating with them. I hope that the program we implemented for the children and families in E-Hope will also be with them and whether it could be in education, health, or livelihood, that they bring along their learnings from as they journey through life because I know within myself that their stories and our moments shared together with them is something I will cherish forever.