Hyundai PH stages collaboration with PETA

HARI gets in touch with its creative side. Top management of Hyundai Asia Resources, Inc. (HARI) underwent a two-day theater workshop at the PETA Theater Center in Quezon City to kick off the year’s business planning activities. The workshop aimed to explore new platforms for creative learning and teambuilding in the context of the automotive business.

Hyundai Asia Resources, Inc. (HARI) sees itself as a company that carries its signature innovative thrust in mobility, the country’s third top ranking automotive firm and this year’s Hyundai Global Distributor of the Year, went off-the-beaten path by engaging the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) to facilitate a 2-day theater workshop for top management to kick off the year’s business planning activities. The workshop aimed to explore new platforms for creative learning and teambuilding in the context of the automotive business.

PETA, hailed as the Philippines’ pioneering national theater group and recipient of the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Award for culture and the arts, gave the HARI workshop participants a taste of their 50 years of “bold, collective contributions in shaping the theater arts as a force for social change.”

According to HARI President and CEO Ma. Fe Perez-Agudo, “Theater is about telling meaningful stories. In line with our ongoing GUSTO campaign, we seek to transform the company, across the ranks, into an agile business that is in step and attuned with our digital times, but without losing sight of the personalized, human touch that customers today seek and demand of us. PETA has been cited for its efforts at transformative leadership in Asia. Their artist-teachers are in a unique position to help us take GUSTO to the next level by infusing the ‘heart’ into technology.”

According to PETA President Cecilia “CB” Garrucho, “PETA recognizes the importance of teachers in forming young and adult minds alike. We have been training teachers since our founding years in pedagogical ‘experiential’ techniques and creative curriculum development, particularly in preparing more engaging lesson plans. This is how PETA succeeds in its objectives of entertaining and educating. Many companies worldwide are turning to arts-based learning to explore non-arts concerns, such as management and leadership. Very few local companies have yet to explore this platform. That is why HARI is a trailblazer in this regard.”

Now on its fiftieth year, PETA was founded with the initial vision of creating a “national theater” in the Philippines. Working out of a theater in the old ruins of Intramuros, Manila, this non-profit organization rose to prominence with groundbreaking productions in Filipino, the national language, that were remarkable for their artistry and social relevance, at a time of resurgent nationalism and deepening political crisis in the country. It is today an integrated, people-based cultural collective engaged not only in performance but also in training, curriculum development, national and international network building, and mobilizing communities using a participatory approach that is rooted in local culture and responsive to real issues in the larger society.