Remember the time the streets were flooded with cars and malls filled to the brim with people hanging out, laughing, and breathing freely? Good times, good times.
On December 31, 2019, people were anticipating a new year, not a life-threatening outbreak. The World Health Organization (WHO) received intel about a mysterious ‘viral pneumonia’ circulating Wuhan, China. At first, we could not grasp the severity of the situation, until January 13, 2020, when the Chinese media reported the first COVID-19 death. Not long after that, news from Japan, America, and France regarding COVID-19 started surfacing. It was no longer a deniable fact that things were already getting out of control, and more people were getting infected. (who.int)
In the Philippines, from January to February, there had only been 3 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 1 death. It still felt like the country would be safe and we would not be affected, but that was not the case. Come March 2020, the country’s initial response was to ban overseas travels and enforce community interventions. Despite the effort, there were a total of 111 cases reported as of March 14, which led to the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) implementation on March 15. On May 6, the cases reached 10,000, which resulted in Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ), which dreadfully lasted until September. In December, we celebrated Christmas under an extended General Community Quarantine (GCQ). (CNN Philippines)
Despite the situation the COVID-19 pandemic brought upon the world and the many other things that happened along the way, physical events like tutor gatherings unfortunately needed to be cancelled, but RareJob still managed to organize a handful of events. The show must go on!
In September, one of the webinars RareJob created for the tutors was about Staying Healthy Indoors. Since the tutors are home-based, it is best to be aware of possible health problems that could occur and how to prevent them. Another webinar conducted was about IT Security, which is very important now that everything is stored and transacted on the internet, it is best to have knowledge about threats. The last, but not the least, webinar was about the importance of having a complete lesson flow. From October to November, a series of Halloween Party activities were organized for tutors to take part in and enjoy. Of course, as a perfect ending to an imperfect year, a year-end celebration was also held. These events were specially planned to acknowledge the existence and hard work of tutors, because they are indeed part of the RareJob community.
RareJob tutors share about their 2020 experiences.
In the course of events that happened around the world, including Japan and the Philippines, RareJob was still strong enough to prevail, taking the company’s place in the First Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). This gave hope for a stronger 2021 to the RareJob community, paving the way to more fun, insightful, and value adding events.
