By: Angeli Monique Siladan
Peace Advocates Summit
Celebrating the Mindanao Week of Peace, the Angat Buhay Youth led by the Office of the Vice President gathered 31 youth organizations nationwide in its first Peace Advocates Summit. Among them are 3 Iloilo-based organizations, championing youth leadership and peacebuilding in the Visayas.
The summit served as an avenue for young peace advocates to deepen the conversation on peace education and strengthen unity in the nation. The 5-day event held dialogues on the history of the Muslim Filipinos and the tri-people in Mindanao, as well as mentorship sessions on developing peacebuilding projects. Key learnings from this series of activities are meant to inspire the young Peace Advocates come up and execute community projects that contribute to cultivating a culture of peace.
After a full day of project pitching, Bai Rohaniza Sumndad-Usman, founder of the Teach Peace Build Peace Movement and co-organizer of the summit, highlighted that even if conflict and violence continue to rise in the country, hope is still alive because there is a generation willing to take the challenge on the path to peace.
The summit ended with the awarding of grants to the 12 outstanding peace projects with VP Leni Robredo. She emphasized the importance of innovative solutions to promote peace from young people, who experience and understand the problems on the ground.
The 3 Ilonggo youth organizations are among the top winners and will be implementing their peace education projects in 2020. The organizations are Augustinian Communicators’ Guild from University of San Agustin, Partido sang Mainuswagon nga Bumulutho (PMB) from University of the Philippines Visayas and Qapwa Philippines.
Reflections on Peace
Augustinian Communicators’ Guild
Rhynshien Joy P. Olivete: Peace is completely understanding oneself and reacting accordingly to different things for the peace of mind of others. Peace should always start from within.
John Resty B. Dabalus: Peace is not only the absence of violence, hatred and other negativity in this world. Peace is also embracing differences, respecting cultures and opening horizons for everyone where there is no discrimination.
Partido sang Mainuswagon nga Bumulutho (PMB)
Jose Marie A. Eslopor: Peace is unlearning your biases and opening yourself towards new perspectives, even if it is opposite to your personal beliefs. It is the acceptance of the diversity of my community and helping them further realize their ikigai or purpose in life.
Japhet Thias M. Macato: To effectively promote peace in Western Visayas, we have to look beyond our region. The peace we have here should be the same peace we aspire for the rest of the nation.
Qapwa Philippines
Angeli Monique Siladan: Peace is the acceptance that being human is beyond geography, our last names or the traditions we practice. It is through educating peace that we can give fully our empathy and compassion to self, to others and our planet.
Teach Peace Build Peace Movement
Facilitator Ma. Soteya Apryll Arroyo Trasadas: It is high time that we come up with a strategic intervention towards nurturing and cultivating resiliency as we transform the cycle of conflict into a cycle of creating proactive citizenship peacebuilding.
The Winning Projects
Augustinian Communicators’ Guild
FilAr Peace aims to raise awareness on mental health issues for high school and college students in Iloilo City through a film festival, art exhibition and forum.
Partido sang Mainuswagon nga Bumulutho (PMB):
Isip mo, Sagip Ko! aims to raise awareness on Mental Health Issues in the province of Iloilo through conducting a series of interactive interventions among Grades 7-12 students in Miagao.
Qapwa Philippines:
Dumala Visayas aims to change the negative perceptions of Visayans toward Muslim Filipinos through a content generation training for student publications in Iloilo to create and publish culturally sensitive and inclusive content.
[modula id=”154356″]
