Major Group for Children and Youth

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Masakbayan Youth Initiative

#ProtectWomenBeatCovid19

Location: Philippines (Cagayan Province)

In this global health crisis, would you rather buy a sanitary pad? Or food? Both are necessary but when you live in a fifth class town and a third world country, you'd rather buy something that sustains you- food.

We live in a fifth class town in the North Peak of the island of Luzon in the Philippines. We started an initiative to create a youth volunteers hub and it was launched online, due to high demand of youth leaders, volunteers and Advocates. In my town, and the province at large, there really is a small number of youth actively participating in initiatives.

As we launched this campaign #ProtectWomenBeatCovid19, we saw gender gaps and that we wanted to call the national and local government to also prioritize women. Because we should all affirm to the fact that the enhanced community quarantine is leaving our girls and women behind. We got a call that there are stranded students from a state University in our place, and these students are from the far islands of Calayan and Batanes. That's where it all started.

We started creating an online movement, gathered youth and started contacting local pharmacies and groceries, and we asked Sanitary Pads as donations. In our three weeks of conducting, we have given sanitary pads for the stranded college girls. And in hopes of reaching more girls, we started to stretch ourselves and reach more communities, like the Indigenous people community in our place, and so it continues even now in hospitals to provide sanitary pads for the patients and the frontline workers.

Up until today, we have partnered with a two working organizations in this initiative, and yes we won't stop in making this initiative and we plan to carry this as a major initiative or project for our growing three weeks organization. We are proud to say that even boys and men are happy to help us make this initiative possible by delivering and donating. One by one, town by town we are making our brothers too as feminists. As a core team of nine young people, we are in high hopes of making our place advocacy center of Cagayan Province.

Support

As of the moment, we only have about 40 USD as our budget, we are asking our parents, friends, local stores and our current donation drive to provide us a box of sanitary pads which causes, 13 usd. As this ECQ was extended, we will be needing an estimation of 360 usd to support all communities in the town.

Other needs: Volunteers, Access to information

See more:

facebook.com/masakbayan.youth

instagram: @masakbayan.youth

For more information contact covid19@unmgcy.org