Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Prof. Herewith is my Genogram i am submitting to you. May God whose only begotten son took the form of a child to save humanity bless us all always.
Regards,
Genevieve Ricafort-Ramos
Cebu Regis Genogram by Leader Genevieve Ramos
Genevieve R. Ramos
Leadership – Cebu Regis
I. Genogram (Family Tree)
A. Grandparents' (Father Side)
My Dad's father, is Antonio Ricafort Sr. He is the only child. We used to call him lolo Tonio. He is a known tailor in our place. I don't know much information since my dad already died I don't have someone to ask to. What I know is that he lives long, his very healthy, he died through old age.
My dad's mother is Rosario Matudan-Ricafort, she is the eldest of the two siblings. His brother is a soldier and he died during the war. My mom said that my Lola Rosario is very intelligent but she opted to stay home to take care of my father and his siblings. My Lola manage a small sari-sari store in their house while taking care of my father and father's sibling. She died early due to cancer of the blood. (Leukemia)
B. Grandparents (Mother Side)
My Mother's father is Lolo Romauldo Rojas Sr. He is the eldest of of the four siblings and a father of five children. He works as a health officer in Allen, Samar. After less than 5 years, he was transferred to Calbayog. While in Calbayog, he opened a small sari-sari store and eventually grew it big and became our main source to sustain the family needs. My lolo Mandong was so strict as what my mother described him. He was so protective of my Mom to the extent that no suitor can go through and ever tried to court my mom because of fears brought about the strict demeanor shown by my lolo. He always fetched her whenever my mother would go with her friends to have fun. He died during which old age came.
Tiya elena is the second sister of my lolo. He is highschool graduate and she is a house wife. She is a mother of 13 children, quite a big family and married to Herman Monsanto.
The next sibling of my Lolo Mandong is a twin. There Tihay and Tuyay, Lola Tihay got married to Apolinario Alorro. They have one child but died when she was still a baby due to heart complication. Lolo Tuyay the twin sister of my Lola Tihay got married to a US navy they have one daughter, eventually Lola Tuyay died due to cancer of the uterus.
My Mother's mother is Lola Aurelia Corsiga-Rojas. She is the fourth daughter of the seven sibling. She is an entrepreneur, she managed their small business together with my Lolo Mandong. They have a good relationship with my Lolo, they have a happy marriage. My lola died at her 50's due to stroke and high blood pressure like my dad.
My Lola Aurelia's eldest sister is Lola Neneng don't have much information since she died early and my mom don't have her information.
Next sibling is Lola Daday, she has five children. Lola Daday is the most beautiful among all siblings. She died likewise of old age.
Another sibling is Lolo Sanoy, Lolo Sanoy has one daughter and she is married to lola Manyang. He is a fisherman and unfortunately he was drowned when the boat sunk due to a big typhoon while fishing for a living.
Another brother of my Lola Aurelia is Lolo Kiking. Lolo Kiking was married to Lola Eliang. He has four children. He is a farmer. He has a wide land area for plowing rice and monggo as his farm product. They sell their goods directly to market. He died due to old age.
Another brother of my Lola Aurelia is lolo Damaso, he is married to Benigna Calipes. They have three children. He is a business man they managed also their small business. He died on his 60's due to stroke caused by highblood pressure.
Another brother is Lolo Oting, he is married to Antonia. He has three children. He is a farmer, he died early qlwo due to Ulcer.
The last sibling of my Lola Aurelia is Lola Inday, he is married to Diogracias Getigan, a soldier and died during world war II.
C. Parent's (Father Side)
My father's name is Antonio Ricafort Jr. He is the youngest of the three boys of the 5 children in the family. My father is a businessman. He was not able to finish his college because of the limited resources of the family. He gave way to her two sisters who back then were schooling too, hence, he only finished up to high school. He was able to put up their whole sale retail business together with my mom when they get married. But eventually their business did'nt flourish, my father was not able to focus after my eldest brother had a vehicular accident. They went to Manila and Cebu to seek for the best medication of my brother. Eventually, expenses piled up and my father wasn't able to focus anymore in the business. My father blamed himself on focusing on the business rather than taking care of his children. Another incident happened when my sister also died with pneumonia. These incidents triggered my father to enter into vices like drinking and gambling and eventually he was not able to focus in the business anymore.
My father suffered from stroke about 12 years ago and passed away when he was 56 years old.
The eldest amongst my father brood is Tio Pabling. He was not able to finish college because at an early age he started working already helping his dad to earn a living for his brothers and sister. My Tio Pabling got widowed at his very young age since his wife died at young age due to diabetes. Despite of being the only breadwinner in the family he managed to send his sons and daughter to good Schools and landed a good job.
The second brother of my father is a Politician. He became Vice Mayor of our City, became Board member in the District 1 of Samar, and 3rd termer City Councilor in our city with a landslide vote. My Tio Totoy despite of being financially challenged she managed to always win in the election because of his people skill.
Both the sisters of my father are Educator. They are passionate on their teaching until they eventually retired. Both my two aunties in the father side don't have children they are married, but my other auntie, Auntie Eday, adopted a daughter while the other auntie did not adopt. Both aunties are the one who help us if ever we need something like financial and other needs.
D. Parent's Side (Mother)
My mother is the eldest amongst 5 siblings. She is Senona Rojas-Ricafort. She is a retired teacher with an entrepreneurial mindset. My mom was a working student back in her high school, she stayed in one of her aunt house while she is studying. It was during her stay with her aunt's house where she learned the meaning of hardwork. My mom helped send her siblings to school while she was working already being the eldest of the family.
Tio Romy or Romauldo Rojas Jr. is the second of my mother's brood. He is an educator back then. He achieved the Superintendent position in the area where he lives at his very young age. But Tio Romy, was not able to enjoy his life to the fullest, he died at age 45 due to heart failure.
The next in line, was Francisco Rojas or our Tio Dodoy. Tio Dodoy is also an educator. He is the principal of one of the Primary and Secondary school in Northern Samar. Unlike Tio Romy, Tio Dodoy continued his service as a principal in their school until he retired. He enjoyed his retirement years and about two years ago he joined the creator after suffering from stroke and heart complication.
The second to the last is Tio Semy. Tio semy is also a principal in our place. But during his retirement he migrated to the states and join her only daughter in Texas and help her daughter in taking care of her children.
The last is Tia Eday, Tia Eday is also an educator. But she did not further herself and was satisfied of being master teacher. My Tia eday had a wonderful and colourful childhood, she used to hang out with her friends even if they have their own family already.
E. Siblings
I am the youngest of the seven siblings in the family. I graduated Bachelor Science in Accountancy, Cumlaude at Christ the king College where I took my secondary education. Being the youngest I was not privilege to be away from my parents during my College years so I stayed in our place until I graduated.
Our eldest brother, Gerry graduated BS Economics in the University of Eastern Philippines, he then proceeded to study Law at Christ the king College. He is currently working as the Assistant Head in one of the Offices at the Local Government of Calbayog.
Our second sibling, Gina is a graduate of bachelor of Science in Dietary at the South Western University. She is forced to avail an early retirement at work due to health problem. Currently she's enjoying her retirement by taking care of her apo from her eldest daughter.
Two of my sibling graduated as a Teacher. One is a multiawarded passionate teacher and the other one stop teaching since he realized then that teaching is not his passion. Currently he is working and finding ways to work abroad.
My other brother Graduated Bachelor of Science major in Management. Currently his working in California as IT techinician.
Lastly, my brother Gino graduated Engineering in University of San Carlos, He is currently working at the Engineering department in our Local Government in Calbayog. Recently he put up his own trading (roofing) business.
II. What does this mean to Me as an Individual?
(a) What is my birth position in my family?
I am the youngest of the seven siblings. Being the youngest I recalled that I was privileged with pampered treatments by my parents and my siblings. However, on the other hand, my parents together my elder siblings were like overprotecting me. I felt that being not allowed to pursue better education outside our province (like cebu city) is one of those restrictions because of safety concerns and this was the disadvantage of my being a youngest child in my family culture.
(b) What values do I hold important in my life? How do these affect major decisions and life directions?
Since my life back then was not that easy and economically comforting, considering that my mother was the only one working and bringing the food on the table and providing us with the things that we need, I learned the value of appreciating whatever we have at that time, particularly on sharing the blessings no matter how small it is, I also learned the value of hard work to make ends meet. I learned to relate well (be closed) with each of my family members, being always reminded by my mother that in helping each other specially on challenges that will come our way, will be easily hurdled as a family than being divided. And lastly I learned the value of God Centeredness in my life because my Mom would always walk the talk with us that only God will know what's best for us. These values served as my guiding principles specially at times when in difficult situation now and then, it served as my source of strength if ever I am caught in a situation where I get tired of working, and get burned out of some problems sometimes. Hence, my humble beginnings will always serve the beacon of my all time inspirations and understaniding grounded with my core ideologies.
(c) What are my struggles? What are my areas of improvement
Life now is a lot better than before financially. It seems that it's easier to earn income when I could focused on working. Lifestyle is a bit different now than before. The struggles that I am facing right now is (for one) on how to maintain the lifestyle I used to have, when there is not much income coming in so that we can build our assets further and not on the liabilities. It is ironic that as much as I wanted to live a simple life here, I keep living the kind of life with so much of fancy things that is already beyond the normal and simple life that I would have wanted back then. With the kind of work, me and my husband do, we are so exposed to a luxury, fancy and extravagant kind of life which is beyond what I imagined. My challenge now is to go back and stay as simple as I should no matter what life can bring me.
My second struggles that I think I was able to inherit from my mom is being a worrier. I worry a lot of things even just how small things maybe. I like the positive attitude and sometimes I have a very low confidence. These are areas that I need to address and work on. I believe that improving these will give me more success.
(d) What are my strengths?
I owe some of my good traits from my mom. I develop to become resilience and value of being honest and with high integrity, since over the years of working these strengths of mine help me a lot. Another strength that I have is that I am intuitive and my love for learning. It will help me build my confidence overtime. Another strength that I have is the value of relationship I can relate and passionate in relating and helping other people.
III. Current Family
(a) In what stage of family development is my family?
Looking at my life stage now me and my husband is in the parenting stage. I have four kids with different personalities to attend to. Parenting a four young and teen age mind is a little bit challenging with the current technology developments now a days. Very far from what we've have been through, my kids now are very much advance and even knows a lot of information than myself. There is advantage and disadvantage though because some of this kids have access of information which they don't suppose to know which is a disadvantage.
(b) To whom am I closest in the family? What is the nature of our relationship?
Since I have my kids are still small and i was not able to develop a closer relationship with my eldest daughter, and despite of my nature of not really emotionally attached my husband though our life together is not s bed of roses but I should say we pretty have a good relationship together. We learn a lot from each other.
(c) To whom am I least close in my family? What is the nature of this relationship?
Though me and my eldest daughter often has a lot of disagreements but I still believe that respect is there and that's one thing is very important for me. Among all of us I should say that we have a good relationship with my family.
(d) What am I proud about my family and being part of this group of people?
I love my family no matter what. I believe that in a family, life starts and we learn to love, laugh and cry. If the family will not be there and or broken it's so hard to fix it again and the future also will seem to turn uncertain. I am very proud of my family, I am proud of my husband because he is the great provider and a very cool dad. I love my talented kids they are very confident and vocal on what they wanted in life.
(e) What is often my role in my family?
As a mother, I take care of the house, do the budgeting and the grocery. Make sure that my kids will be able have the good and healthy food to eat. I also take care the needs of the kids from the school and from outside school. I tutor them, be their doctor when they got sick, be the stage mom when they have activities, their adviser and a coach if they need to be guided and their disciplinarian teacher if theirs a need to. I am their big fan in every little success they may have and a great motivator. At work I help in the finances of the company. I am the one who will look for funds if funds is not enough. I also help my husband earn a living from the sale of my jewelry and from my being a financial consultant.
(f) What stressor affect my family now? How difficult are they to handle?
The stressor usually affect my family in terms of my kids when they get sick and their in trouble in the school I usually get affected the most. Another stressor is that when finances are not enough to cover expenses this is the greatest stressor also that mostly affects me especially that I do the budgeting. For me this stressors actually are not that difficult to handle yet since with our experience and with the help of our God everything has always a solution and He will not give you that challenges if He knows that you don't know how to handle.
(g) What resources are we using to maintain family equilibrium?
The very centre of our family is God, my family have to put God first in everything we do. We believed tha without God, we are nothing and we can't find a balance in our family life. Hence, In order to put balance in our family life we make sure also that we have time for our kids and we have to take time out and relax.
(h) To whom am I least close in my family? What is the nature of this relationship?
Usually being last in the family is always an advantage in terms of relationship, all my siblings are looking after me and to
IV. Growing up in my family
(a) What was the kind of family environment in which I grew up?
We have a very close family ties. Even with extended relatives, I remember how we often celebrate occassions, for one on christmas we, our family and extended family will celebrate christmas together with lots of fun and surprises.
(b) What activities did we do regularly? How did we celebrate holidays and special occasions?
Going to hear Sunday masses and eating out is the usual thing that we do regularly. We make sure that we go to church during Sundays and day of obligation. We usually celebrate birthdays and holidays from simple dinner to big celebration if it's a milestone. I remember when were small every christmas all my cousins will have a party in our house with lots of fun and surprises especially when my uncle was still alive. We celebrate fiesta every January 15 the feast day of Sto. Nino in our place. When were still young I remember that we are very active in our community during santacrusan on May we always make it a point that it will be a memorable one- like we do cultural shows together with my friends and join in the procession.
(c) What did I consider turning points in my familys development? How did these affect me?
For me growing up is a very wonderful opportunity to build great and everlasting memories. During my growing up years, because we didn't have enough financial resources to afford those fancy celebration and travel, I remembered that the memories I had meant so much that gave me so much of beautiful perspectives in life, had it not been with those challenges, I would not have deepened my understanding about life and values that essentially brought me into where I am today with my family.
(d) How did my family cope with the stressors that we all faced?
When challenges come on our way, we talk about it and the most powerful weapon to combat those challenges are PRAYERS…IN GOD there is no huge problem that will never be solved.
(e) Who was/is the leader in my family? Who wields power in my family? How is this used?
For me I think my mom is the leader in our family. She showed her leadership by showing us how strong she is, the acumen and faith based leader of the family having to raised seven children is my Mom. All the difficulties she fought despite her being alone in raising us and earning for a living. She is a leader by example and an authentic one, she showed us her love and care to us unselfishly. While we grow with discipline and respect to each and one another's opinion, she gave her support to what we want to do of course with due reminders of the consequence/s that might happen if we do such choices. What I think help my mom become an effective leader is her strong faith and the guidance from the Holy Spirit coupled with her being an educator. I can see how she surrendered to God in everything that she did.
(f) What was considered important in my family? What was I often taught to remember as I was growing up?
The most important lesson that my mom taught u, that I can not forget was the value of family and trusting God in all that we do. Through prayers and putting God within us is the powerful lesson that I was able to learn from my mom I witness how she was able to surpass all trials through the power of prayers and that's the powerful lesson ive learn from my mom. The second lesson is the value of family no matter what happens the family will always be there for you.
(g) What conflicts or tension points existed in our home and how were they resolved (if at all)?
I cannot remember any serious tension in the family except that I remember my mom everytime she needs money especially during exams, I remembered how my mother will get stress on how and where to look for funds to spend for my brother who studied in Cebu then.
(h) What were the characteristics and habits in my family that saw us through hard times?
The habit of prayers especially during hard times is the powerful habit that i saw in my mom on my growing up years.
V. My Family and I
(a) What do I observe in myself that I also see in my parents and other relatives (e.g., career choice, personal characteristics, choice of spouse/relationships, patterns of coping, patterns of relating, pathologies, etc.)?
My parents are both entrpreneur and at the same time my mom is a teacher. I got my parents business acumen, eversince I was small I noticed how my entrepreneurial mindset is manifesting in me. Now I noticed that being an entrepreneur is really in our roots. One thing also I noticed is that my family are very closed with each other. Our relationship has been burning like fire, eager to meet again.
(b) What patterns, both healthy and unhealthy, do I see in my family?
Unfortunately, it seems that I got the genes of being overweight and the prize of being overweight is the risk of heart ailments and highblood or stroke which is very scary.
(c) What myths do I continue to perpetuate?
I don't think I will be able to continue the myths I learned from my Grandparents. My kids now a days, being exposed to a more strict catholic christian school, they don't believe in any myths. They are the one reacting everytime I talked about something old and myths in the family, because they think that it's a supesticious belief, of which I concurred.
(d) How has my being part of my family shaped the person that I am today?
The person I am today, I owe it to my mom. She is my hero and my inspiration. All the principles from being grounded, God fearing, High integrity and Hardwork has been rooted in my culture.
(e) What are the strengths of my family to which I significantly contribute?
Some strenghts that I think will contribute to the family is my being entrepreneural mindset in which if ever my business will progress I can help a lot of family member whom needs my help not only financially but also experientially.
VI. As a Leader
(f) How has my family background and history shaped me as a leader?
Knowing my roots I was able to understand more deeply now where I get my strength and why most likely
(a) How much of how I have been shaped by my family reflective of my own leadership style and habits, i.e. dealing with people, opportunities, stress, conflicts
I am so much thankful for being able to reflect on the the successess and challenges expressed in a colorful experiences of the generations before me. This moved me to be more aware on my family's inherent weaknesses and as well as the strengths. I have viewed life to a more wider perspectives knowing that each of us are being wired in a culture brought about by the generations ahead of us, a culture that forge opportunities, strees and conflicts both in dealing with people and ourselves. The magnitude of my awareness after knowing the stories before me, has deepened my understanding beyond my personal awareness to a more genitically oriented one. In effect, I can better address myself, tone my communications in context with the others and their culture and influence my circles specially my family-daughters to become the best they can be.
VII. Insights
(a) What did I realize from this activity?
I have many realizations. But the most among all, which is beyond just experience of going through the interviews that somehow also made me realize that the traits and characters of the generations before me has somewhat influenced and connected to my beliefs, strengths and passion, is the fact that unless you ask the right questions to get in context with the situation, there are countless possibilites and angles a situation can be of value to me, such as on my self awareness. With the questions being asked on this project, I have opened up greater understanding of things, events, relationships both failures and success to which made me see through many possiblities and hopefully address my insecurities and low self confidence.
(b) How do I feel about these insights?
These insights made me hopeful and optimistic that i can fix my inefficiencies/weaknesses by investing on my time and efforts on my core strengths and the what I am gifted for with strengths such as the values of God Orientedness and the passion of helping, all of which I connected from the generations before me.
(c) How do I want to proceed from these realizations?
On the negative traits I somehow got from my parents that is being worrier, I want to cut this negative attitude by consiously developing on my core strengths that is God orientedness through constant reflection and action planning and alignment so that by practicing on what God taught us, I wont have to worry on how to solve my worrisome attitude as the worry itself isnt with God.
On the positive traits which are not being given much attention to, such as the passion of helping others through entrepreneurship, I will take this seriously by being more question oriented when engaged with a conversation with my husband who is also an Entpreneur by heart and action (traceable from his family roots) so that we can compliment and work seamlessly on our interest without being usually bagged with pride on whose ideas are better.
(d) What course of action shall I undertake?
I shall keep my list of priorities on the side with my inventory of strengths and share it to my husband so we can work things our much more humbly. I believe, through this, I will be able to assist and influence better my partner or my husband to work things out to generate sustainable results from my being a purpose driven enterpreneur anchored with God as my main motivation to help my family and others. I shall create a journal of my prejudices and biases to once and for all clear my thoughts and from there, it will be easy for me to source my reflections and self assessment once in a while to strive to be able to take out bad traits and cultivate the positive ones.
Hence, my kind of leadership is humility and the ability to anchor a sustainable journey with people and God. 3.5
