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| Learning, Sharing and Paying it Forward is What This Project is About |
Standing alone, one can
only do so much, but together we can make a difference.
This holds true for the
project implementation of Youth4Nature in Tawi-Tawi, Autonomous Region in
Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Philippines.
At zero-budget to implement it with, it was almost impossible to
implement it because money for some if not most reasons makes things
happen. As the main project
implementer of this follow-on-project, I took my chances in volunteerism. All I needed to do was convince a small
group of people to help me with the project, and all I had to do was asked my
friends to help me. Together we
have pooled our resources and linkages in the community proving true the
Filipino culture of “Bayanihan” (it means a concerted efforts of
working together. The goal is to
help without counting the costs) so as one person donated pens, another donated
a ream of bond paper, another one lent us an LCD projector, and everyone gave
their time and expertise as their contributions towards making this project a
reality at no charge at all.
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| Y4N Mentors are Young Professionals Tawi-Tawians for Tawi-Tawi |
I told my friends and
former colleagues that I have always wanted to come up with a project with the
youth in relation to information and education campaigns on environmental
conservation. I chose to mentor
and organize the youth because indeed they are the hope of the community. The Province of Tawi-Tawi has the
potential of greatness because of the youth. Everything I have done so far, I could not have done it
without the help of others who believe it too. Youth for Nature is now a collaborative effort of
Tawi-Tawians for Tawi-Tawi. We are
a group of young professionals working training the youths of the community to
take on that personal leadership and advocacy to care about nature in the
spirit of volunteerism and be involved in community efforts, so that they too
can pass this on and pay it forward.
During
the last week of February, we have conducted a series of trainings and workshops
in three (3) different High Schools in the main town of Bongao in Tawi-Tawi
Province. We have tapped the help
of other movers in the community from different sectors of the government and
non-government organizations to help train the core group of 25 student leaders
from the 7th and 8th grade for each school. We have decided to train the 7th
and 8th graders so that they will still have time to pay it forward
to their respective schoolmates in the coming school year, and have enough time
to actually implement their pay-it-forward action plans.
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| Student leaders contributing their thoughts and ideas on environmental conservation |
On
March 16th, we have also launched three (3) radio programs at three
(3) radio stations in the community.
There are two (2) programs on FM radio and One (1) on AM Community
Radio. The goal of having these
radio programs is to give the youth the voice to air their thoughts and ideas
on involving everyone else to care about nature and participate in the
community’s efforts towards making the Province a better place to live in.
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| Student broadcasters take turn in sharing their ideas and thoughts in conserving nature during the launching of Pag-Ayad AWOL (Caring for Air, Water, Ocean, Land) over DXGD-AM Radio for Peace 675 Khz |
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admirable movement. keep it up and we can all be the instrument of CHANGE for the BETTER :D
ReplyDeletethank you lovemindanao. you can help us promote it and maybe you too can do a youth4nature in your own province? let us know :p
ReplyDelete