TBTK to focus on home-coming

youth with cultural immersions

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, Jan 6 (PIA)—Kids born abroad from Boholano parents, have a special reason to come home this July, as the Tigum sa mga Bol-anon sa Tibuok Kalibutan (TBTK) focuses on immersing them in the local culture, in a belated bid to allow them to anchor their roots to Bohol.

This too as this early, Boholanos are already in the thick of preparations for the largest organized homecoming of Boholanos in time for Bohol Day and the Sandugo Season.

Now coming after years of interruption brought about by the pandemic, this year’s TBTK is expected to bring back the biggest delegation of home coming Boholanos, who missed coming home due to the travel restrictions.

Dr. Disi Alba, organizer for this year’s TBTK, said this year’s homecoming event is an apt thanksgiving to God, for sparing us from the pandemic that took many lives, and to the people who prayed for us to get past that test.

TBTK, which was conceptualized to bring in fresh and much-needed capital for an economically struggling Bohol in the late 1990s, beckons Boholanos who have carved names and have been successful abroad, to come home for family and class reunions, thanks giving, tours, and events in the season of the Sandugo Festival.

Organizers then saw that a returning Boholano would be spending a little bit and possibly perk up the local economy with the immediate cash circulation.

A split-away activity from the Confederation of Boholanos in the USA and Canada (CONBUSAC), which meets once every two years in the US or Canada, the TBTK which finally happens in Bohol this July in time for the Sandugo Festival and the Bohol Day activities, is expected to attract the biggest crowd this year.

First hosted by the province in late 1990s, TBTK been going every four years until the pandemic interrupted the reunion.

According to Dr Alba, TBTK president for the 2024 event, this year they have been partnering with the Provincial and City Governments, as well as the Dioceses of Tagbilaran and Talibon, to line up activities that could interest returning locals, this early.

Speaking at the Kapihan sa PIA, Dr Alba said that Conbusac president Dr. Rhine Pamaong is also organizing the Boholanos in the USA and Canada to come home for the week-long event that also features investment fora where Bohol officials present pre-identified viable business ventures proposed for funding, and which successful Boholanos could pick and possibly finance.

Capitalizing on the homing instincts of the Boholanos, TBTK 2024 organizers now want the young generation of Boholanos abroad would come home to feel how their parents lived before going and permanently living abroad. Dr Alba said.

The homecoming also presents this opportunity for the youth from Boholano families abroad to learn and understand the local culture through immersions, community engagements and civil action, organizers bared.

She said this also allows the local youth under the Sangguniang Kabataan to actively host events that would get the aims of the homecoming, into a reality.

On this, I am calling Boholanos around the world to come home for the (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

YOUTH IMMERSION. TBTK 2024 president Dr Disi Alba bared that unlike the previous TBTK events in the past, this year focuses on immersing the homecoming youth into the local culture, to allow them to understand and better appreciate their Boholano parents. (PIABohol)