By Cristyl Mae Senajon*

My childhood days were a lot of fun. I would play all sorts of backyard games — tumbang preso, taguan, bahay-bahayan, soccer (the pinoy version), shiatong, and flying a kite with my older brother. I found so much life, freedom, and enjoyment out of those little everyday activities.

Unfortunately, many Filipino children today are victims of poverty, child labor, malnutrition, juvenile delinquency, child prostitution, and the lack of education that they skip childhood altogether and miss out on just having fun.

From 1995 to 2000, a total of 52,576 children “were monitored as having been deprived of their liberty in detention placement, under custodial setting through suspended sentence,” says the Second Country Report on the Implementaton of the Convention on the Rights of the Child submitted by the government’s Council for the UNICEF’s Welfare of Children. About 2.06 million children all around the Philippines are compelled to do labor in crop plantations, mining caves, rock quarries and factories, among others. Out of 10 students who enter Grade 1, less than 2 will finish college.

Despite appalling reports about the condition of the Filipino child, there may be hope for a child-friendly society due to certain social institutions. Kabataang Inyong Dapat Suportahan (K.I.D.S.) Foundation is an example.

KIDS foundation was founded by a group of friends who were simply seeking for ways to help out. This group of friends is composed of actor Diether Ocampo, Lawyer Karina Tanega, Media man Mondo Castro, Graphic artist Egay Bautista and businessman Bene Go.

Before they set up KIDS, Karina and Diet were very active in outreach programs that other people thought they had a foundation of their own. Donations poured in, some of which came from Filipinos abroad. The first came from an overseas Filipino family who donated hearing aid kits. This family has a child who suffers from hearing-deficiency. This was followed by more donations. Diet, Karina and three of their friends realized that they had to organize themselves.

They designed KIDS foundation’s programs to address major child-related problems such as child labor and malnutrition. Reduce, Eliminate, Decrease (R.E.D.) Undernutrition raises awareness on good nutrition. 100 KIDScholar is an educational assistance granted to public elementary students. Isang Milyong Aklat, Isang Milyong Pangarap is a nationwide campaign promoting the habit of reading among the youth. Out of the Streets, Into the Court, is a program with NIKE Philippines promotes sports by building basketball courts in different public schools in the Philippines. Medical Aid is a financial assistance for chemotherapy sessions of cancer patients in the pediatric ward of the Philippine Orthopedic Center.

“Filipinos have this notion of being friendly to women and children that’s why we have specialized focus on these sectors”, says Karina relating to the question whether we have a child-friendly society or not. “We have enough laws to answer these problems but culturally it’s difficult”, she added.

Not so many kids are blessed with a happy childhood because some them are needed early on to labor for their family. For the last two years, KIDS Foundation has been trying to change this. It hopes to be a sanctuary for more kids who are abandoned by society.

“Just remember what kind of childhood you have and wish that you can share that childhood with the next kid,” Karina said.

*Cristyl is program assistant for Youth Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship Program at the Ateneo School of Government. For those who wish to learn more about social entrepreneurship and how to become an effective social entrepreneur, the Ateneo de Manila University-School of Government together with Ashoka-Philippines will be running Beyond Bottomlines II: An Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship this coming September 20,2008 (Saturday), 8 am to 5 pm at the Ateneo de Manila-Professional Schools campus in Rockwell, Makati City. If you are interested to attend this seminar, you can send an email to youthventureph (at) gmail (dot) com or contact Katrina Wy at (02) 683-0262 local 141.

IN MY previous post, I talked about having your own market—a blue ocean strategy.

Now if you went to business school and are wondering if you were absent the day it was taught, know that the blue ocean strategy is a fairly recent marketing term—it was first used in Harvard Business Review in 2004. In 2005, authors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne released the book Blue Ocean Strategy which became a best seller.

In a nutshell, blue ocean strategy says: Don’t compete with rivals. Make them irrelevant. To do this, one must leave the highly competitive overcrowded industries—the “bloody” red ocean—where companies compete head-on for a shrinking profit pool. A corporation will do well to create an uncontested market space ripe for growth—the vast blue ocean.
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A FEW WEEKS ago, my desktop PC almost gave up on me. First it was the power supply, which had to be changed. Then the video card refused to work. I had to have that changed too. Then the PC would reboot automatically several times while I was working, making me frantic to save my document more often. It turned out I had to change the memory too.

So while the computer was in the shop for a few days, I had no choice but go to an Internet café to meet my deadlines. At first, I went to a neighborhood Internet shop near a school, a few minutes away from our house. At P15 per hour, it was a good deal, I thought. It was okay for the first 20 minutes, until the owner’s young daughters came and made the place their playroom. Then my seatmate started chatting to her boyfriend abroad and I couldn’t wait to get out of the place.

The next day I went to another Internet café on the main road nearby. They had more computers, and the place was a “serious” Internet café. The rate was P20 per hour. But then a barkada of gamers came and they were cursing and shouting like there’s no tomorrow as they machine-gunned people onscreen.
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By Lauren Wong*

I came to the Philippines ten years ago, and all I can remember are the white-sand beaches of Palawan. It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen, and I imagined the rest of the Philippines to be just as gorgeous when I boarded a plane bound for Manila. My summer internship with Ashoka Philippines would last for two months; I found that natural beauty abounds, but not in the sprawling mega-metropolis where I live and work. The city, like so many others, is a hub of urban pollution. Luckily for me, there’s life outside of the city limits.

Aside from interning with Ashoka, I got to spend some of my weekends in non-urban areas. Trekking up Mount Pinatubo, planting trees near a dam in Zambales, and spending an afternoon in an isolated village in Negros Occidental reminded me of the breathtaking natural beauty of the Philippines. In those little villages tucked in the folds of mountains, people live in communion with their surroundings. Villagers fashion umbrellas out of palm leaves, make useful rags out of tattered clothes, and let no scrap of food goes to waste. The ones I’ve met still remember how to live with the earth, not simply on top of it. That kind of mentality stands as such a contrast from the lives most of us urbanites live.

We need to remember what it feels like to not pollute the earth. As climate change becomes a more present danger, we (being Filipinos, Americans, and every other citizen of the world) have got to reconnect with our environment. Some of that starts small, like bringing cloth bags when shopping or, if not, use all of those plastic bags for garbage cans. We could put pride in Filipino-grown food rather than preferring goodies from Switzerland. We could make a conscious effort not to litter and demand a comprehensive recycling program. The biggest environmental concerns here in the Philippines happen to be large structural issues like diesel-belching buses and inefficient energy grids, but that shouldn’t dissuade the average citizen from trying to do their part. People and communities around the world are finding ways to “do their part”, and the Philippines should see if others’ innovative models can be applied here.
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Do you have a product you want to sell but don’t have the capital to put up a store? An easy way to make a sale (and test the market) is to go online and put up a virtual store.

That’s right, make cyberspace your mall and set up shop by putting up your own website with your own customized web address or join the many young entrepreneurs doing business via social networking sites like Multiply and photo sharing sites like Picture Trail.

Kaye Catral makes diaper cakes—fancy “cakes” made of diapers, towels and baby essentials that would make good baby shower gifts. She also does towel cakes that are gift items too. At first, Kaye said she was planning to put up a real store, but the overhead alone will make her products expensive. “I decided that putting up an online store site would be a better alternative to a small, starting business like NappyCakes,” says Kaye. Kaye started her Picturetrail site in 2004.

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