Eight-year-old kid is youngest PPCRV volunteer

Rhyss Bunyi (right), an eight-year-old volunteer at the PPCRV. NESTOR CORRALES/INQUIRER.net

Volunteerism is in their blood.

Rhyss Bunyi was among a group of volunteers at the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) command center in Manila.  But unlike his co-volunteers, Bunyi is just eight years old.

“It’s nice to help,” said Bunyi, the youngest volunteer at the Pope Pious XII Center in Manila.

While children his age would rather stay home or watch television, Bunyi was at the command center on Saturday, encoding election results from the election returns of the May 9 polls.

After a short briefing on how to encode the results, Bunyi went to his assigned computer and started encoding votes of the candidates.

He said he found no difficulty encoding the results and added that he enjoyed what he was doing.

“I am happy because I am part of history,” he told INQUIRER.net.

A family that volunteers together

Bunyi was not the only one from his family who took part in the volunteer work at the PPCRV.

The grade four pupil of the Claret School of Quezon City was with his mother, Sheryll, and two older sisters.

Sheryll admitted that she was also a PPCRV volunteer when she was in grade school.

“Ever since grade 6 ho ako, nag-vovolunteer na talaga ako sa PPCRV as poll watcher sa mga schools,” Sheryll said.

(I’ve been volunteering in the PPCRV as a poll watcher in schools ever since I was in grade 6.)

She said her kids love to watch news on television so she encouraged them to join as PPCRV volunteers.

“Sabi ko maganda ang maging volunteer para ‘yung sense of volunteerism nila ay madevelop. Sabi ko magiging part sila ng history,” she said.

(I told them it’s good to be a volunteer so that their sense of volunteerism can develop. I told them they’ll be part of history.)

Sheryll said she was proud of them because at a young age, her children were able to take part in volunteer work.

“I am proud. Kasi ako, ginagawa ko ‘to dati so gusto ko ma-experience rin nila ‘yung na experience ko dati. Sana paglaki nila, magkaron sila ng sariling desisyon na magvolunteer ‘pag ganitong mga eleksyon,” she said.

(I am proud. I did this before so I want them to also experience what I experienced. I hope that when they get older they will decide for themselves to volunteer when there is an election.) JE/rga

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