The People YOUth Should Know, no.1

Written By Hazel Dautil & Sam Gomez; Art by Abby Tamayo

What makes the youth stand out? It is their passion to pursue positive change in the age of globalization;

when ideas or advocacies intersect and have the ability to impact people from all over the world. The youth of today are quickly becoming the gamechangers of tomorrow — with the tools of social media, civil society, and greater democratic participation all at their fingertips.

In Featured Youth: Kids of the Philippines, we speak to young Changemakers who work at the forefront of numerous causes. They share their experiences and tips for other young leaders who aspire to contribute to society in their own way.

Gaby Silao is one of the founders of Laban Pangkalusugan (LP). Gaby and her co-founders created Labang Pangkalusugan as COVID-19 emerged in the Philippines, when they realized many people were uninformed or misinformed about the issues surrounding the pandemic. With this, Gaby and LP’s main advocacies are the universal right of everyone to healthcare and the right to be adequately aware about health issues in the community.

What‘s the inspiration behind your advocacy?

I personally advocate for a lot of things. Gender equality, science and health education, and sustainability are the advocacies that I’m most passionate about. As I was thinking about them, I realized that my passion for them came from me being exposed to certain injustices surrounding these topics. I found out about them through informative articles, posters, videos, and most importantly, from friends, family, and other youth who would openly discuss these topics and share their experiences with me and inspire me to do the same. This made me realize that at the root of all my advocacies was my advocacy for education, open communication, and youth empowerment, for these three things enabled me to feel comfortable in speaking up and advocating for things I believe in.

How has your org helped you advance your own advocacy and made other people aware and involved with it?

Labang Pangkalusugan’s Mission is to raise awareness on health issues by making information about them accessible and understandable to people of different backgrounds. We want to send a clear message that everyone has a right to quality healthcare and has both the right and responsibility to be properly informed about health. We also aim to give the youth a platform where they can use their different skills to educate others. With our platform, we are able to give the youth tools to make more informed decisions, and to feel empowered enough to hold meaningful conversations with their peers or even older people, especially in the time of a pandemic where every action counts, and where being informed makes all the difference.

I believe that LP is a platform that is rooted in education and empowerment, which is why it helps advance my own advocacies a lot. I feel strongly about a lot of different things: science, health, education, and design. With LP, I’m able to make tangible change involving all of these things that I care about, and I’m sure that everyone else in LP can say the same. We all have our little passions and advocacies that we add to our content, our designs, and our events.

With every post released, every peso raised, and every webinar conducted, I believe that we send a message that young people can be informed, creative, generous, scientific, and that they can add their own personal touch to making a difference.

What have you learned from your experiences with the org especially in regards with your advocacy?

I learned that no one has just one advocacy, and that all fields of study, all advocacies, and all skills are connected and affect each other in some way. This shifted my perspective a lot and I realized that it is a huge advantage and creates so much room for collaboration and innovation. My Co-founders are all from different backgrounds. Miren is a math major, Aleynah is a management and marketing major, Lyaa is studying Industrial Engineering, and Trisha is a Biology major and aspiring doctor. On paper, we shouldn’t have anything to do with each other and with health education as the main advocacy for our org, but all of our own passions and advocacies are connected. We all feel strongly about helping people our age be more informed during this time of COVID-19, Miren and Trisha are really good at research and writing, Lyaa and Aleynah feel really strongly about accessible healthcare and are good at effectively communicating information through design. The same goes for the rest of our members. Each of us have something of ourselves to offer and to teach to each other, and together, it allows our organization to keep churning out unique and impactful outputs that further champion our advocacies, as well as learn new things and speak about them.

Your organization was founded partially as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines. How do you think our country is responding to this crisis?

I personally think that it could be better. Our country had so much potential to be able to control the outbreak, but it was not maximized. We knew that there was a highly contagious virus spreading quickly, and could’ve closed our borders and banned all incoming flights, but we didn’t. We have a lot of skilled experts who advised that our country conduct mass testing, and we had one of the longest lockdown periods in the world, but no mass testing occurred during the ECQ. We have a lot of very competent healthcare workers, but one of the highest healthcare worker mortality rates. We have amazing scientists and researchers in the country who developed COVID-19 tests and continue to predict the direction of our country’s epidemiological curve, and we have funds and even took out multiple loans for COVID-19 response. Despite all of this potential, COVID response in the country from the public sector lacks unity and efficacy. This lack even pushed the private sector to gather and donate resources to Filipinos in need, even if it is not the private sector’s job to provide for their needs. We need increased funding for the science and healthcare sectors, policies rooted in research, and human-centric relief operations, to name a few. Some cities and offices in the country, as well as other countries have done it, proving that with good governance, efficient response is possible.

My only message is that the numbers say it all. The number of COVID cases, deaths, days under lockdown, pesos borrowed, jeepney drivers begging on the street, unemployed Filipinos, and commuters who have to walk to work, are still going up, while these numbers are going down and are even completely down to zero in other countries. The Filipinos have been complying with the strict lockdown measures of our country since March. Why has so little changed? What can be improved in terms of governance and policy-making?

The next featured youth is Tasha Soriano. She is part of Retaso which is a social enterprise and a partner organization of Kids for Kids. They make products which are an alternative to plastic bags — such as cotton, linen, nylon, polyester — and to products that can potentially create textile waste.

What‘s the inspiration behind your advocacy?

Textile waste is purely created by any clothing wear. Textile waste by textbook definition is clothes — including jeans, shirts, skirts, shoes, underwear, and leggings. “The inspiration behind Retaso all starts with a plastic bag, an everyday essential we all use to carry our things after we grocery shop or to even store things we want to sustain for a short time; however, over time plastic dissolves because of its material and within that we would have to dispose the plastic somewhere and that somewhere is our environment, specifically our oceans,” Tasha suggests.

How did you discover or start your initiative?

Tasha discovered Retaso through a post of Bye Bye Plastic Bags Philippines. The organization was recruiting members for their project teams — and Tasha saw this as an opportunity to continue working towards her personal advocacy of reducing plastic waste. Afterwards, she was offered the opportunity to be the Head of Retaso. She was also entrusted with the job of developing and starting up Retaso as a social enterprise. “Besides all of that I was really happy to help out and be a part in something that will influence and help people to start changing and seeing the way they live in order to help the place they call home.”

What have you learned from your experiences with the org especially in regards to your advocacy?

Her experience with Retaso has brought many lessons and experiences to learn from. What I’ve learned from the org is that there’s no idea too crazy, big, small or even impossible to do. Being surrounded by supportive, kind, creative and incredible people boosts up your confidence to do whatever you dream or imagine to do in your assigned role in the org or whatever you are working for. Being encouraged to do things outside the box pushed me harder to develop and make Retaso more than what it is and it definitely motivated me to fight harder against climate change, plastic pollution and the fast fashion industry (textile waste). Within that all that support and encouragement from my fellow co-workers/org mates translated to how we in Retaso treat our community as well! Supporting, guiding and motivating them towards learning more about the fast fashion industry and its negative impacts towards our environment and to the society. Additionally to encourage them to lead and try to practice a sustainable lifestyle by supporting local, ethical and sustainable brands and many more,” Tasha shares.

What I’ve learned from the org is that there’s no idea too crazy, big, small or even impossible to do.

How does Retaso advocate sustainability?

• Retaso up-cycles textile scraps from local brands we partner up with so that we can contribute in reducing the textile waste in the world.
• The products we produce are sustainable alternatives to the not really sustainable or eco-friendly things we use on a day-to-day basis like plastic bags; thus, we design our products to be functional, versatile, and unique.
• In our social media account (Instagram) we promote and talk about the fast fashion industry, the environmental impacts of textile and plastic waste, as well as ways to transition into a more sustainable lifestyle so that we can lead our community to help out in protecting our environment in their own small ways of learning, listening and taking action.”

How else can we promote sustainability beyond lifestyle changes? How can we help people who have no access to sustainable products and are dependent on disposable packaging and plastics?

Apart from those, Tasha also encourages the youth to incorporate simple sustainable practices in their lifestyle. “It’s essential first to promote it as a mindset and mission to people because sustainability is one of the solutions we can do to help stop or reduce global warming/climate change. So within that the people who know about the current issue at hand and accurate facts/information about it should share it to everyone they know,” Tasha suggests. She also adds that to help people, who don’t have access to sustainable products, is to guide them to cheaper alternatives by supporting local brands or releasing publications to help the people make their own alternatives like shampoo bar and cleaning products.

There are other ways to shift to a sustainable lifestyle aside from purchasing products. It is recommended that people are more intentional when it comes to buying products, in order to be more aware of the origins and sustainable use of the items they buy. Tasha advises that people should “buy less, use longer.” There is also the disclaimer that buying all sustainable products does not mean you are sustainable. “You can live out a sustainable lifestyle by not creating so much trash or not consuming so much and save what you can save if that might be jeans that are broken by sending it for repair, jugs that are dent, and shirts that are stained.”

A last reminder from Tasha is that shifting to a sustainable lifestyle is a process that takes time to practice and learn. “Within that we need to support one another with our pace of the steps we are taking to live a sustainable lifestyle and by means of support I mean talk to each other about how one is doing, sharing with each other different experiences they had through this process and sharing information that can be vital in each other’s journey/process.

Sinta Baraquel is a volunteer whose first-hand experiences have inspired her to become an advocate for human rights, environmental rights, and cultural heritage. She continues to act on this through leading numerous initiatives and organizations

What‘s the inspiration behind your advocacies? How did you discover or start developing interest in your advocacies?

Sinta grew up attending outreaches, rallies, and meetings. As she grew up, she eventually got to build her own beliefs and take her own steps to start her advocacies. She is currently involved with organizations such as Kids for Kids, OSEC, Kakampi Club, and Kaanib. She was even involved in rescuing and rehabilitating horses stranded at Taal Lake during the Taal Volcano eruption!

What have you learned from your experiences with the org especially in regards with your advocacy?

All the credit goes back to her mom and her line of work which served as a big influence to who she is today. “If I weren’t raised by a legislator, I wouldn’t be who I am today,” Sinta claims.

Being a Kids for Kids volunteer helped Sinta gain more experience with her advocacies. “Kids for Kids really pushed us out of our comfort zone,” she said. It was her first time encountering an organization where all members were young. She realized that kids can do it. They can make change. “No matter how small or big the idea is, you can make a change. I’m really grateful for being a part of Kids for Kids. I thought it was only a dream before since I am still young.

Kids for Kids removes the fine line of just being a child. Kids for Kids changes the game for kids,” Sinta adds.

What challenges did you face along the way and how did you overcome these personally? How easy or difficult is it to be a young person trying to make change?

As a young gamechanger, a big hindrance for Sinta is that little voice that tells her “you’re just a child,” but that didn’t stop her. “I’ve learned to be careful and wise about choices and the things that I am a part of. But going back to how we were raised and what my mother believed, she said to me, “Pwede kang matatakot, huwag ka lang maduduwag.”

How do you think we can use our privilege to help others?

“We shouldn’t feel guilty of our privilege, because helping others is not limited to just physically going out there to help. Educating yourself is already helping, because only once you do that can you truly start to educate others. You also have to understand that problems are universal, anyone can have them. When it comes to helping the marginalized, we need to listen, learn from them, immerse ourselves, and be with them to fully understand them. It’s not about a hero complex if you want to help change. We cannot help everyone, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t help someone. It’s a team effort because we can’t expect a single person to change everything.”