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Manny Valdehuesa .

IT’S unfortunate that our youth were sidelined by suspensions, postponements, and cancellations of their sangguniang kabataan elections for a number of years.

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But now the SK is back, empowered once more with a fresh mandate. Let’s help them or guide them to become real assets to the community.

The Katipunan ng Kabataan (KnK) is the totality of the local youth  population, whence their leaders are chosen. It is the largest  mandated organization for the youth of every community—a  unique vehicle for enabling them to participate in nation- building in a meaningful way.

With at least 10 percent of the barangay’s income set aside for it, the KnK has more money than any campus youth organization can dream of raising. It is meant to enable them to initiate programs and projects for their own generation.

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Activities in the past tended to revolve around sports, pop concerts, and token beautification or clean-up drives. Surely they can conceptualize more substantive activities this time around.

The community’s adult sector should reach out to them, lending a hand, assist them in planning, support their worthwhile initiatives.

Parents can help by seeing to it that their 15- to 30-year-olds are registered with the KnK, encouraging to do so if they’re not. Unless they do, they cannot participate effectively.

Care should be taken that the KnK’s funds are not cornered by the young surrogates of traditional politicians, frittered away in sleazy deals or unproductive projects that do nothing for youth welfare.

Particular attention should be paid to the youth in campuses, reaching out to them with ideas or advice on worthwhile things they can do in or for the barangay.

The Sangguniang Kabataan, as the operating arm of the KnK, should make good use of its new-found status in the community. As the KnK’s vehicle for developing and undertaking programs and projects, the SK has the money and the power to mobilize their fellow youngsters.

Undertaking developmental initiatives will enable the SK to give substance and meaning to the youth’s presence in the community. It should motivate its members to view the community (barangay) as their workshop, where they can apply their leadership skills as well as their classroom learning.

They shouldn’t have to wait after graduation to face the challenges of the real world. They don’t have to pour all their energies on campus pursuits to the exclusion of their community. Why be content with the virtualeality of campus life, using virtualeality tools under virtualeality situations when there’s reality galore in their neighborhoods that cry out for attention or improvement.

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The youth’s past track record in barangay affairs has not been impressive. Their money was sunk into unproductive uses. This time they should learn to treat the funds allotted for them as capital for investing in youth development programs, not as a spending allowance to be used without developmental objectives.

Doing so in the past gave them a really bad reputation and should be carefully avoided henceforth. Much of their finances was frittered away in frivolous activities and Lakbay-Aral junkets that offered lots of fun but little or no learning or impact on their generation.

This time, better planning, with sound budgeting, would attract more funds from counterpart contributions. There are private sector or civil society groups, including philanthropists and business groups, that would want to see them flourish by financing youth-initiated programs and projects.

For instance, they could establish an internet café of their own, or set up a supervised study hall for poor students with no quiet corner or study table at home. Or they could capitalize a credit cooperative with student-loan programs. They could also sponsor a breakfast-feeding program for impoverished pupils.

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Such programs could attract donations from businesses with a keen sense of corporate social responsibility. Bakeries, restaurant chains, or supermarkets can be approached. A shuttle service to transport pupils who live in areas far from school is another possibility.

The current crop of SK leaders should be very careful to avoid the bad habits of the past. There should be less preoccupation with politicking, or learning campaign tricks from seniors who mentor them in trapo ways of milking a community.

Let’s not allow Rizal’s Hope of the Fatherland—the idealist youth—to be elbowed aside by street-smart and corrupt SK politicos who grow up to take their turn in a system dominated by trapos.

Let’s help our youth bloom and achieve political maturity!

 

(Manny Valdehuesa Jr. is a former Unesco regional director for Asia-Pacific; secretary-general, Southeast Asia Publishers Association; director, Development Academy of Philippines; member, Philippine Mission to the UN; vice chair, Local Government Academy; awardee, PPI-Unicef outstanding columnist. He is chairman/convenor of the Gising Barangay Movement Inc.. E-mail: valdehuesa@gmail.com)

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