During many years, starting before I met Jennifer, I have supported Philippine Scholars through primary school, high school and university. It was a program run by the Catholic Church supported first by me and then by a couple of my Swedish friends as well, Arne Wennberg and Karl-Axel Granlund. But as always it it the individuals that count and originally it was Father Nip (Niptale Frogosa) and later Father Eric (Eric Raveza III) overseen by Fr Bruno (Bruno Rampazzo) that were instrumental in guiding the program and mentally supporting and encouraging the scholars.
When Jennifer joined me we became quite active in not just financially supporting the scholars but meeting up with them and following them in their studies, meeting their families and seeing them getting older and forming their own families
But Fr Nip moved up to the north of the Philippines (where I have later met up with him), Fr Eric unfortunately passed away at far too young an age and Fr Bruno moved on to the Vatican. And with these instrumental persons gone, the glue holding the university program together was gone. But the old scholars are still keeping in touch after more than 20 years and many of them are also keeping in touch with Jennifer and me. Rays of light in all our lives.
One such Sunday hit me this last summer, when I was contacted by Benjamin Nevado, who is running a team of several hundred people in call centres in the Philippines serving off-shore companies. And one of those companies is the BBC. Ben was visiting London and contacted me and I took the opportunity to take him out to dinner in London after both of us had finished our London meetings. Think that those students even after 20 years take the effort to get in touch when they visit our country!
You can read more about the Philippine Scholars on my website at the tab about St Hannibal’s Foundation on my home page on this website. And on the last photo on that post before the slide show, you will find a much younger Ben at the very right (camera right) in the third row of students and graduates.
