To help more street children to help themselves

Childhope Philippines and Asian Community Center (ACC21) continue its mission in helping the street youth of Metro Manila by empowering them to change their lives better through engaging them in different livelihood/service skills training that will help them to have a sustainable job and have an income generating activities.

The selection of potential youth participants for the Project Bamboo, the new project name of Street Youth Empowerment Project / Vocational- Technical Skills Project, was done by the street educators. There were initial of 20 youth participants referred by the street educators from different areas in Manila, but only 15 street youth were only show interest and ensued to continue to join the Project Bamboo.

The new street youth participants composed of five females and ten male, ages 16 to 24 years old, are mostly come from Ermita and Caloocan area. Only one of participants is a street-based youth while the other participants are considered as community-based youth.

The duration of their training started last April 2022 and expected to finish by end of September 2022. And here are the highlights of their training from April 2022 to June 2022.

Skills for Life Session

The Skills for Life session is part of the preliminary activity wherein the street youth participants teach on how to communicate well to each other and able to know their strength and weaknesses.

This session allowed the participants to share their experiences in life without any hesitation and to learn from others’ life experience – that helped them release any guilt feelings from themselves. The topics that they went through are “Self -awareness”, “Inter Personal Relationship”, “Critical thinking”, “Problem Solving”, “Conflict Resolution”, “Coping with Emotions in a positive way”. These topics were able to prepare the participants with any challenges in life.

Fourteen (14) street youth participants attended the said session at Museo Pambata and the session was facilitated by Mr. Balaguer.

Financial Literacy Session

Street youth participants were taught how to manage and save money through a three-day Financial Literacy session held last May 27 to 29 and was facilitated by Ms. Sineneng. It aims to teach street youth participants to save money – a discipline and skill that will be required when they are helped to develop a vocational skill to eventually earn a living and leave the streets. Street youth who are not taught how to manage, value, and work for money lack the skills they need to be self-sufficient. This session has impact not only on the youth’s future finances, but also self-esteem, relationships, and overall enjoyment of life when he or she matures into adulthood.

The session also focused on how important to make their own journal where the participants can monitor their daily expenses. They learned also the difference between needs vs wants.

Entrepreneurship Session

This three-day session taught the street youth participants on how to become entrepreneurs with the tools and understanding of how to make their businesses a success. This session held at Museo Pambata and facilitated by Ms. Sineneng. The session are composed of different topics such as business management strategy, how to make a business plan, traditional and online marketing strategy, and how to understand the advantages and disadvantages of running a small business.

Values Formation Session

As part of their employability training, these street youth participants joined in a values formation session last June 22 at Museo Pambata, Manila City. This two-day session aims to develop youth's good values that will help shape them into a better person. We believe that youth have strengths and weaknesses, but the key is to help them define their own values and find what they love doing. The facilitator highlighted the importance of humility and faithfulness and to respect each one of them based on their faith and belief.

Through these efforts,Childhope Philippines will be able to encourage the street youth to start their own ventures and jobs. It aspires to give them hope to support themselves and their families using their skills. With the current issues that trigger problems for the street youth, it’s easy for them to lose hope. But having groups like Childhope Philippines whose mission is to that provide help for the poor gives a glimpse of hope towards change. Help more street children have a better future!