Mindanao youth bring leadership to life through the AFI-ELSA Youth Civic Engagement program
5/20/2010 | Ayala Foundation
The Education Livelihood Skills Alliance-Youth Civic Engagement Program (ELSA-YCEP) breathes new life into its activities through its Youth Civic Engagement program. After attending the Youth Leadership Camp, Community Scanning, and Project Management Training, ELSA campers must implement the proposals they crafted during the training. Out of the 41 project proposals submitted for the current batch, 17 were given small grants worth 10,000 pesos each. The grants were awarded in the last quarter of 2009. At present, the approved proposals are being implemented with the assistance of AFI community organizers.
Malnutrition was identified as one of the issues affecting education in Mindanao communities. Malnutrition affects attendance and class participation, leading to a high dropout rate and an increase in the number of Out-of-School Youth (OSY). ELSA camper, Lloyd Ibañez, is responding to the issue by leading a project on Community Gardening and Supplemental Feeding. Through this project, 55 identified malnourished pupils of Nagret Elementary School and Day Care Center in Brgy. New Igbarras, Pigcawayan Cotabato would be benefit from a 4-month feeding program. Two hundred square meters of agricultural land was developed into a community garden as part of this initiative. The garden provides ingredients for the feeding program, with proceeds from the sale of its products also serving as funds to buy other materials needed for the project. The area used for the garden is owned by the project lead and was contributed as part of the community's counterpart. As the team implements the community gardening and feeding, it is also monitors the beneficiaries' nutrition status and school performance in partnership with the teachers.
To date, the number of malnourished pupils has been reduced to 23, and the team is observing continuous improvements in their nutritional status. Class attendance has increased to 95%, and positive changes have been observed in the students' academic performance, based on their active participation in class discussions and activities. The project was made possible by the strong relationship established with the Nagret Elementary School Parents Teachers Association and Pag-asa Youth Association of the Philippines (PYAP) as manpower for the project implementation, and the Municipal Agriculture Office, which provided seedlings for the community garden. The community garden will be maintained as an income-generating project to sustain the feeding program beyond the timeframe of implementation.
Other youth-led projects such as infrastructure development, provision of instructional materials, development of libraries and research center, and tutorial programs, among others, are currently being implemented in different areas in ARMM. Another batch of Mindanaoan youth leaders are also set to implement their own projects in the coming months as the ELSA-YCEP continuously provides the youth with opportunities to test their ideas and leadership skills.
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