The Sangguniang Kabataan ng Barangay Maybunga, together
with other youth organizations, show you're never too young to make a
difference in your community.
“Ano ang ambag mo?”
When netizens started asking that
question at the onset of the coronavirus lockdown, the answer of the
Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) ng Barangay Maybunga in Pasig City was to establish
the #AmbagNgKabataan advocacy, originally #BeatThatCOVID.
The initiative’s purposes are to advocate youth leadership and involvement, and
empower the youth by giving them an active role in the community.
“#AmbagNgKabataan aims to prove that
the youth holds up to its titular role of being the hope of the future,” SK Maybunga
Chairperson Patricia Mae Torres said.
Helping the needy
Through #AmbagNgKabataan, members of
the SK Maybunga helped the neediest in their barangay including teenage solo
parents, breastfeeding mothers, and indigent families through relief assistance
projects.
For the youth organizations to be
prepared, SK Maybunga Councilors have set meetings with the leaders of their
constituent youth organizations to orient them with the proper operating
procedures.
With the help of youth
organizations, the SK was able to identify the neediest citizens, repack, and
distribute the goods.
To be precise with the distribution,
a house-to-house survey was conducted beforehand to check who qualifies as
recipients.
Youth Empowerment Community
Organization President (YECO) Jehwie Bantillo described their organization’s
struggles while doing the community assessment.
“It’s hard to balance the ideas of
giving everyone aid and selecting the neediest in the community, but we made
sure that everyone is given the chance to (be on the list),” he said.
Making it possible
When it comes to funding the
program, the SK depended on its 10% budget allocation from the barangay, and
citizen donations.
“We decided to realign the budget
dedicated to our supposed projects to respond to the pandemic,” SK Maybunga
Treasurer Aubrey Garcia said.
Normally a long procurement process
is required to have the lowest bidders supply civil work projects, but the
Government Procurement Policy Board allowed negotiated procurements for
pandemic response starting March 26, enabling the SK to acquire the goods
faster.
Once the goods were available, the
SK then faced the overwhelming task of repacking the relief goods for
distribution together with youth volunteers.
SK Maybunga Councilor Roselyn
Constantino shared how they turned the repacking process into a game to
encourage others to make quick progress.
“We divided ourselves into two teams
and started a race. Whoever repacks faster wins the game,” she said.
Through the game, they were able to
finish at least 30 packs in 5 to 10 minutes, with each one containing all of
the essentials for the relief distribution.
By March 30, the SK was ready to
distribute the first wave of relief goods to residents in the barangay.
Reaching out
Hoping to reach every resident in
the area and ensure their safety, SK Maybunga and youth volunteers equipped
themselves with face masks, gloves, and alcohol, and distributed the goods via
a door-to-door process in a bid to avoid a mass gathering.
With the relief goods distributed by
batch, those who weren’t able to receive theirs were listed in SK Maybunga’s
recipients for the next wave of distributions.
So far, the group has provided food
packs and vegetable bundles to 6,000 families, diapers and biscuits to more
than 1,000 kids, welfare kits to more than 10,000 households, 300 personal
protective equipment sets to medical frontliners, and three waves of supplies
to area and curfew monitoring frontliners.
“It is fulfilling to help the
community with the most that I can do as a youth,” Damayan Youth Volunteer
Jeffrey Collo said.
Beyond relief
As a contribution to the development
of Pasig City, members of the Sangguniang Kabataan ng Maybunga Council also
assisted with the house-to-house payout of the supplemental cash assistance
program of the city government.
LODI Ka Organization of Villa Concha
was able to continue the annual tradition of the community’s Santacruzan in May
by retaining prayer meetings and household transfers of religious statues while
following safety measures. (READ: The spirit of Flores de Mayo)
To uplift the spirits of the
residents during quarantine, Kabataan ng Damayan (Damayan Youth Organization)
has been creating online dance videos and distributing biscuits to children
residing in their area.
As Metro Manila eases quarantine
restrictions, SK Maybunga is creating a recovery and adaptation plan for their
constituents.
“To move forward to continually help
our constituents, there is also a need to shift to new programs,” Torres, the
SK Maybunga Chairperson, said.
Youth organizations have also
pledged to help the community to continue the #AmbagNgKabataan advocacy.
Acknowledging those who helped make
the project possible, the SK Maybunga Council thanked the youth organizations
and volunteers for putting in the effort to help residents in need.
“From a mere nine-man council, we
got (helping) hands from around 80 people throughout the whole program,” Torres
said.
The council asks the youth to be
part of the ongoing advocacy by posting their contributions in fighting the
effects of the pandemic on social media using #AmbagNgKabataan. People may
track the advocacy’s progress here.
– (Contents reposted from Rappler)
In photo: Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) ng Barangay Maybunga council members, together
with youth volunteers, give relief goods to residents in Barangay
Maybunga on May 26. (All photos by Martin Louise Tungol)
