By Rey Anthony Chiu | 02:42 PM April 01, 2023
Claiming their second chances, out-of-school youth from all over Bohol think the pervasive “Me” mindset needs to change to “We,” as the challenges of social transformation becomes even more urgent.
Gathered at the disaster risk reduction and management and climate change mitigation (DRRM-CCAM) and Buhay Ingatan, Druga Ayawan (BIDA) wemboree at the Coco Mango Resort in Panglao March 29-31, some 45 youth leaders from the academe, Sangguniang Kabataan and OSYs under YouthLead respond “Kami” as the organizers shout “Listo,” and “Listo as the “Kami,” was sounded.
The youth all agree that building a critical mass of activities to revert and avert the effects of disaster and drugs is as urgent.
Kyle Estaca, 22 years old now into Department of Education’s Alternative Learning System Community Learning Center (ALS-CLC) in Cogon shyly hints as a ‘me’ person.
From San Jose, Sierra Bullones, Kyle said he lived a naughty life, treading into the boundaries of the illegal, that his family decided to send him to his aunt in Mindoro Occidental, where he picked on the same life while at the Mendiola National High School.
Now, clearly left behind by his age-mates, Kyle has tons of regrets of the past wasted life, but has picked up realizing that it would be his future we will waste if he continues to follow his past.
Getting trained as a massage therapist, Kyle thinks the negative effects of drugs can lead to a lifetime of mess.
Like Kyle, Marlo Bacule, stopped attending formal school in 2016 when he was Grade 11 student at the Dr Cecilio Putong National High School in Tagbilaran.
Also a beneficiary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Pag-asa Youth Movement, Marlo has since been active in community work, volunteering for clean-ups, advocating for youth awareness on early and unwanted pregnancy, drug-addiction and climate change mitigation along with disaster risk reduction and mitigation, with the Sangguniang Kabataan of Poblacion 2 and Poblacion 3.
Informally trained as a trainee and helper in a refrigeration shop, Marlo could have been among the country’s growing blue collar workforce for their lack of formal training, often times relegated as second class workers to the schooled.
This is in spite of his rendered community service and involvement.
Here, both Marlo and Kyle feel their work is just a speck in the totality of what needs to be done to avert environmental and social disaster.
Now with 45 other youth leaders from the mainstream education and across the province, at the Wemboree, both think that gathering young people who feel the urgency of putting up interventions in curbing the effects of climate change and the disasters it brings, should be changing people’s mindsets.
Wemboree is a youth camp on DRRM-CCAM in line with the Department of Interior and Local Government’s mandates, the DILG sits as the vice chair of the DRRM in Oplan Listo, and now we are onto Liston a Pamayanan of Listo’s three pronged approaches, shares DILG DRRM focal person Roy Vincent Gaviola.
The youth camp has inputs, the classic bonfire and contests, and interactive group games to build teams and establish camaraderie, he added.
In his message, DILG Bohol Jerome Gonzales thanked the participants for taking the time to make a stand, despite a conflicting schedule with the provincial SK Congress set on the same day.
All throughout the wemboree, participants all feel that the task of making a mark in the dire need for changed mindsets is getting more and more people in to participate in keeping safer and better world, and I am glad I felt that during the 3 day activity, a DILG official also said.
Getting the youth to spread the word and the advocacy on disaster mitigation while learning to prioritize, like they did on emergency balde’s scavenger hunt, in making posters and explaining their ideas, or in creating chants and campaign jingles is certainly one of the most interesting things youth can excel, and that is what the wemboree has done: getting the youth start a tsunami of interventions for a more urgent task, PD Gonzales said. (rahc/PIA_7/Bohol)