The tale of the lost Christmases

Christmas is like love that defies definition. It evokes a multitude of emotions arising from a breathless anticipation of surprises that wrapped packages and homecomings create. It is the presence of family belongingness, of blood kinship that fills the heart with paramount joy and satisfaction. Because unless Christmas is shared with those you love in abundance, then there is no meaning in the ritual of the Holy Nativity.

Christmas celebrations have changed through the years and for more than half the population of this world, the earlier Christmases were more authentic and family-oriented. It did not matter that the Christmas table was not filled with an array of delicious foods one only sees on such occasions, or that the stockings hanged by the bedside only had a few candies and cookies. Happiness exceeded the poverty of allowable choices.

There is a deep nostalgia among those who remember how Christmases were happier then, because of the children's voices filling the room, their running feet echoing the corridors and their laughters and giggles overwhelming the silence of the night. Santa Claus was real to the children, a beautiful tale told and re-told through the ages.

Today, many of the Christmas tales handed down from generations before have all died. They were killed by the real time powers of the television, the Internet, the mobile phones and the digital cameras. There are no more tales to tell and no more visiting Santa Clauses. Yes, the children have become adults too soon, to care about tales from a distant past they cannot relate to.

These days of highly sophisticated technology, family reunions especially on Christmas eve can easily be replaced by digitalised appearances on the Internet. There is no longer that strong feeling of wanting to be home with parents and siblings because absence can be bridged by a digital presence. This is a reality that parents are trying to understand and accept about their children whose lifestyles have changed dramatically. Probably there are still many who follow the tradition, but in general the old ways of Christmas celebration are dead and gone. #

A Filipino foundation is born in Stockholm

In a world of deepening inequality of resource ownership and distribution, a foundation serves as a channel for humanitarian help to marginalised people, especially in poor countries in Asia and Africa. There are many philantrophic organisations and wealthy donors that have contributed enormous amounts of money into well-deserving causes in the field of research to fight deadly diseases such as AIDS, as well as into economic and educational programmes to fight poverty.

Last Dec. 12th, the Philippine Embassy in Stockholm launched a new foundation to be called Philippine Education Foundation, or PEF with the single purpose of helping well-deserving Filipinos to acquire college or vocational education geared towards job opportunities in Scandinavia. The initiator of the project is the current Phil. Ambassador to Sweden and Denmark, Maria Zeneida Angara Colllinson.

Swedish-Filipino organisation leaders were invited to the launch to agree on the proposed constitution and by-laws. Through several fund-raising events in the past, the Embassy ( along with the Filipino community's participation) have succeeded to raise sixty-five thousand crowns as seed money of the foundation. It is an honest start that hopefully will increase in the near future.

The Filipino community started with a small number of immigrants that settled in Göteborg some 30 years back. They were pioneers who were employed in the shipping companies, who chose to settle down in Sweden. Today, informal sources claim that there are as many as 30,000 Filipinos in Sweden, and the number is increasing. Most of them are family members and relatives of earlier immigrants who came and got married to Swedes. Others arrived as au-pairs employed in Swedish households, and a few are professionals in the nursing and academic fields.

I suppose there is a point in adjusting one's education to qualify in a particular labour market and this seems to be the case behind the foundation's objective. Amb. Collinson announced during the launch that Swedish Labour Minister Billström plans to visit the Philippines. The date and purpose of the visit have not been specified. The Swedish government announced recently that it is granting working visas to qualified professionals who can fill certain needs in the market. It does not seem so optimistic these days when thousands of workers are losing jobs because of the economic crisis. Unemployment in Sweden is expected to hit 6.5 percent next year.

The foundation, if it works properly would be a good project to support. There have been many fund-raising activities in the past by Filipino organisations in Sweden, but they were mostly oriented towards acute disaster assistance. What the foundation should aim for is the involvement and participation of Swedish companies and philantrophic organisations with links to the Philippines and the Filipinos. Funding for education is a mammoth undertaking when one takes into consideration the growing population of young Filipinos getting out of schools and universities with nowhere to go but abroad, in search of job opportunities.#