Akap Bata produces ECCD advocacy video

OVER 15 million Filipino children below 6 years old are not provided the basic bare necessities for proper development for them to become functional adolescents, much less as adult citizens.

The Philippine Congress passed Republic Act 8980, mandating government and private sector to cooperate in the grand plan to rescue these underserved population and provide them with a system of preschool preparations.

Yet six (6) years after the enactment of RA 8980, more than 6million of kids remain malnourished. 66 percent (66%) of children have not gone into any form of child care, more than 200,000 are in the streets exposed to unsavory influences.

Akapbata rose to the challenge five years ago by engaging government and businesses to devote much more resources to Early Childhood Care and Development or ECCD. After putting up 35 of its own pilot models of child care models, Akapbata advocates summed up their development experiences in its first advocacy video Sa Sinapupunan ng Lansangan (In the Womb of the Streets).

The video was launched during Akapbata’s annual assembly at the Caritas Manila on Novmber 25 with the support of the United Nations Children’s Fund or UNICEF. The video was financed by a grant from a group of Catholic volunteer youth SERVE Ireland, also a Redemptorist-led aid agency helping the poor in the Philippines, Thailand, Brazil and Africa

The 40-minute documentary shot by freelance television journalist VQ Tagarro chronicles the innovative methods that Akapbata teachers developed for the most marginalized urban poor children in Metro Manila. Two families living in the squalid streets of Manila and a single mother eking a living on top of a garbage heap send their children who would otherwise be disqualified from government day care centers to the Akapbata facilities.

Also featured experts are Bishop Rev. Deogracias Iňiguez of the Caloocan Diocese and Rev. Eliezer Pascua, secretary of the United Churches of Christ, who both emphasized the need for all social sectors of the Philippines to move together to create a huge movement to raise sizeable amounts of resources for ECCD.

Akapbata’s spokesperson, Ms. Susan Villa, said that Akapbata will embark on an advocacy campaign starting in early 2007 to show the video to as many barangay local government units as can be covered. Akapbata hopes to convince the Liga ng mga Barangay to adopt ECCD as an emergency flagship program.

“If the barangays do not act within the next 10 years, the Philippines will lose another generation of young Filipinos to stunted mental, physical and emotional development. There will be huge added burdens to society and the economy if malnourished and underachieving youth are barely able to cope with the challenges of higher schooling and the changing workplace,” Villa said.

Excerpts of the video can be downloaded from this website:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcth2QUXrWE

HELP AKAP BATA BRING ME TO YOUR BARANGAY COUNCILS

There are 41,975 barangays all over the Philippines, many of them have no programs for our children.

Contact AKAP BATA now to help get ECCD the attention it needs. Talk to your barangay officials and the Liga ng mga Barangay to watch this important advocacy and educational video!

Contact info:

AKAP BATA is located in Caritas Manila Compound,
2002 Jesus Street, Pandacan, Manila, 1011 Philippines
Telephone-fax (632) 561 256, email akapbata@yahoo.com
Visit the children at http://akapbata.blogspot.com

Reality bites and sights: SERVE Ireland and the Akapbata 2006 experience

Francis and Tom work as coolies at a construction site. Each got paid 125 pesos or just a bit under two euros for an hour’s work

For two weeks in August 2006, community volunteers from Ireland put on their flip flops, hopped on a plane to Manila and embarked on their journey to rediscovering a mission to travel with the downtrodden of the earth.

Brian McCabe, Aoife Gormally, Mairead O’Donnell, and Francis Loy joined AKAP BATA and its partner nonprofits Center for Community Work and Peoples Development (CCWPD) and the Philippine Legislative Alliance for Children’s Concerns (PLACC) in their day-to-day work exposing them to the realities faced by Filipino children in the Metro Manila area.

Taking time off from their jobs as teachers and students, they interacted with the communities and stayed with foster families that gave them valuable insights and experiences.

The youth contingent ladled out food at soup kitchens of AKAP BATA’s food aid projects and taught teachers how to craft puppets from paper bags and party plates.
They hiked the slippery slopes of Manila’s smoking garbage dumps where they find out that thousands of families live and work as wastepickers on top of the smoldering wastes.


They also visited the expansion sites for future projects in Alaminos City, home to the world famous tourist spot The Hundred Islands. Hon. Mayor Hernani Braganza was on hand to show SERVE Ireland his different social change projects for the poor.

SERVE’s journey with AKAP BATA resulted in a shared commitment to establishing more working cooperative work between the peoples of Ireland and the Philippines for the benefit of poor children all over the world.

SERVE is an initiative committed to tackling world poverty. In particular SERVE strives to combat both youth poverty and pro-actively unleash, nurture and retain youth capacity.

Emerging, from a tripartite partnership relationship, between young Irish adults, Irish Redemptorists and marginalised communities in the developing world, SERVE works to empower vulnerable and excluded groups and communities to become the agents of their own transformation.