Mindanao, located in the southern part of the Philippines, has been in the limelight of national and international media especially after Marawi City, the sole Islamic City of the country, was under siege in May 2017. The 5-months long-armed confrontations between the ISIS-inspired Maute group and the country’s armed forces displaced more than 500,000 individuals including the youth, elderly, women and children. In Central Mindanao, there have been displacements and insecurities due to armed conflicts and summary executions coupled with ineffective delivery of social services of government agencies, slow-paced rehabilitation process as in the case of Marawi IDPs, and backward economic situation. With their mothers, young women take the burden of domestic and economic responsibilities while their men are away. The young people especially young women experience varied forms of abuse during the displacement such as sexual harassments, illegal recruitment, trafficking, discrimination in the workplace, among other cases. Raising Voices of the Bangsamoro Young Women project enhances the political participation of the Bangsamoro young women in the new Bangsamoro Autonomous Region on Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) through strengthening their capacities to raise their voices and perspectives on political issues affecting the youth sector. The project has the following specific objectives: a) Build the capacity of the Bangsamoro Young Women on political participation in Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM); b) Strengthen the advocacy campaign of Bangsamoro Young Women, and c) Establish networks and alliances among potential tri-people women organisations and communities.

The linkages and connections that those who were touched by the Tri-people Youth for Change (Try-Change) was able to make is probably the most powerful legacy of the intervention.  In particular, they became acquainted to or became a member of the following organizations: Bangsamoro Youth Commission; Bangsamoro Women Commission; Bangsamoro Human Rights Commission; Association of Overseas Filipino Workers Children; Alyansa ng Kabataang Mindanao para sa Kapayapaan; Sangguniang Kabataan Officials of select barangays, and Mindanao People’s Peace Movement.  This sort of networking is unprecedented.   

Try-Change was able to conduct various empowerment and capacity-strengthening activities geared towards the visibility of Bangsamoro young women in the local decision-making processes that included Community Education on Bangsamoro Organic Law and Women’s Rights.  A total of six sessions in six communities; Bangsamoro Young Women Conference which enabled the discussion of four (4) major topics relevant to issues and concerns confronting Bangsamoro young women gender inequality. The discussions focused on issues such as the destruction of environment, human rights and violence, labour, migration and education situation. A drafted Agenda from the conference was presented to the three panelists from the Bangsamoro Region, one of them being the newly elected Maguindanao Youth Commissioner. Through this conference Try-Change was acknowledged as a partner of the Bangsamoro Human Rights Commission (BHRC) and recognized as one of the top five partners of the Bangsamoro Youth Commission (BYC) in Cotabato and Maguindanao province for future engagements.  

The Bangsamoro Women Commission (BWC) also invited Try-Change to the presentation and review of the Bangsamoro Women’s Code of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority.  Being noticed at this level was a great achievement.  Some of the activities in this event included Training on Lobbying and Public Speaking – 28 participants were trained, 22 of them were young women, 5 men and 1 from the LGBTQI community. This training was in preparation for the lobbying work in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) government.   The second activity was the Peace Arts Camp: This five-day camp provided space for young women and men to showcase their talents and skills through Visual Arts, Music, Spoken Poetry and Dancing.   The third activity was a TRY-CHANGE Learning Event: The activity was to open up space for key leaders of the rightsholders communities and secretariat for linking and learning.  The forth activity was the Review and Orientation of the Priority Bangsamoro Young Women’s Agenda.   A review of priority Agenda among young women and young men through focus group discussion activity was conducted.  Attendees were able to come up with five priorities which led to their direction for lobbying with local agencies.  

According to Try-Change, the most empowering contribution of the project is the safe space and opportunity for the young women to build confidence in raising their issues and recommendation to concerned agencies in BARMM.  

As a result of the activities changes from rightsholders which included the Try-Change project team. There was a significant show of confidence in raising the voices of Bangsamoro young women and men in different agencies in BARMM.  There was an increased acquisition of knowledge and familiarity on legal rights of Bangsamoro women in Bangsamoro Organic Law and VAWC rights. There are enhanced capacities and skills through creative arts applied in campaigns. Closed coordination and solidarity with other youth organizations in BARMM. And lastly, increased support and commitment of young men to advocate for the rights of Bangsamoro young women.  

Try-Change is a member grassroots organization in the mainland of BARMM and has aspired to use the opportunity given by VOICE to engage further in community development activities.  The project intends to expand their work on empowerment of young women not just for the Bangsamoro region but within the wider scope of gender violence.  The project also intends to engage the Regional Commission on Bangsamoro Women (RCBW) and Bangsamoro Youth Commission (BYC) of the BARMM government so that the voices of the youth can be included in the process of transition of BARMM.   

Quotes 

“Voice Global, through their grantee YGoal Inc. in their Linking and Learning activity, were also a big help to Try-Change and rightsholders in learning how to connect and reconnect to other organizations that might be helpful to each project goal.  We learned that Communities of Practice (COP) and Communities of Stakeholders (COS) is a motivation to small organizations like ours to aim high in reaching our certain goal in our project and even in our organization’s Vision, Mission, and Goals. As of now, Try-Change has become one of the member organizations of the  Bangsamoro  Human Rights  Commission  (BHRC),  and  we  consider  this  as  one  of  the biggest achievements of our organization since we are still an informal group.” 

• Try-Change, Final Narrative Report
  

“The trust that VOICE gave our organization, has given us confidence in continuously engaging and connecting with other potential organizations and this will carry on even after the project is over. The issues and recommendations and other ideas shared in every activity we implement will remain as lessons learnt; these activities have helped us connect with other organizations; network with communities and resource people. The established partnership with these organizations will be used as tools to achieve things beyond the objective of this project.” 

• Try-Change member
  

Photos 

https://app.box.com/folder/143506341539 

Some of the links to these outputs include  

An infographic brochure type containing the priority Bangsamoro young women agenda, women’s rights provision in Bangsamoro organic law, and salient features of VAWC was created, as well as a poster designed with unified Bangsamoro young women priority campaign calls and project highlights were created but no copies were received by Voice.