Yakap sa Kaunlaran ng Bata, Inc. (YAKAP) is a non-governmental organization registered with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), licensed and accredited by DSWD as a social development and welfare agency #community-based in Region IV-A (CALABARZON) and accredited #donee# institution by the Philippine Council fof NGO CertiNC. YAKAP is working with its (8) parent association-members / clusters in Batangas, Laguna, and to facilitate protection and development program for children and youth and theirfamilies in respective areas of operation.

Full Project Title:
Scaling up Advocacy and Youth-Led Action (Volunteer Peer Advocates) on the Prevention of Teenage Pregnancy.

The serious problem on the rising cases of adolescent pregnancy occurs around the globe. According to the World Health Organization(January 2020), there are 21 million girls aged 15-19 become pregnant. Also, there are 777,000 births recorded in third-world countries alone. The bulk of such incidence happens among 15-year-old teen girls. The Philippines has the second-highest teen pregnancy rate in South East Asia at 6%. Further, the country has an adolescent fertility rate of 54.76% in 2018 (World Bank, 2020). To elaborate,there are 547 teen girls who gave birth in every 1,000-recorded births. More so, CALABARZON region inLuzon island ranked first in 2012 survey of Teen Pregnancy cases. The Yakap sa Kaunlaran ng Bata, Inc.(YKBI), a child-centered NGO that serves the CALABARZON area, is eager to contribute to addressing the issue of teen pregnancy. With the organization’s years of experience in community development, it aspires to pioneer a community-based teenage pregnancy prevention program, highlighting women and children’s rights and strong community stakeholders’ support as backbones of the program. The municipality of Bay, Laguna is supposed to be the target area of the organisation’s advocacy against teen pregnancy. However, 2017 data revealed that the city of San Pablo, also in Laguna, was in the top 3 among cities/municipalities when it comes to teen pregnancy rate. The reason why the Project, “Strengthening Youth-Led Action on the Prevention of Teenage Pregnancy,” covered San Pablo instead. In2018, YKBI, with Voice Global Philippines as its partner, 5 barangays became the official pilot areas of the Project. And in mid-2019, additional 4 barangays, also with high incidences of pregnancy rate, were also covered, as per the recommendation of the Technical Working Group (TWG). There’s a need to continue to capacitate the volunteer peer advocates and stakeholders to ensure protection and development. This empowerment proposal was envisioned to address the foregoing gaps and challenges experience during the project implementation. The project goal is to scale up the advocacy on the prevention of sexual abuse against girl children and reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancy applying the promising practice of Volunteer Peer Advocates