Strengthening Advocacy & Youth-led action to prevent teenage pregnancy focuses on understanding the rampant rise of teenage pregnancies in Laguna region despite currently having a running Adolescents Sexual Reproductive Health Programme. This programme focuses on girls who are now mothers as a result of teenage pregnancies.

The model of the project involves assisting young girls in accessing child-friendly maternal healthcare, providing age-appropriate trainings on sex education and effectively ensuring they are knowledgable on the role of being a mother in child-friendly families and communities. This enables and empowers teenage mothers into becoming advocates in lobbying against early pregnancy and ensuring inclusion in communities and educational opportunities for teenage mothers.

 “I got curious when our BNS (Barangay Nutrition Scholar) said I will learn so much from the sessions. I also got interested because they said we would be the advocates to other teens. There are bad things being said about us just because we got pregnant early. So this is my chance to tell everyone that this is not the end of the world for us. Although we have a child, we can still be successful. And this is what I want to share to everyone.”  – Volunteer Peer Advocate 

“The changes brought by the project to the organization is on the enhancement of capacity   in   partnership building/engagement with   the various partner agencies /stakeholders to make the project successful.”  – YKBI 

Link to project objectives | Experiences & Achievements 

The project Strengthening Advocacy and Youth-Led Action on the Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy was a two-year project of Yakap sa Kaunlaran ng Bata, Inc. (YKBI). To respond to their mandate of implementing protection and development programmes for the children of youth in select areas of the southern part of the Luzon island, they led an Innovate & Learn project which answered the following learning questions: 

1. Does providing youth with a holistic approach (accurate SRH education, youth-friendly services, family intervention) contribute to lessen the cases of teenage pregnancy in the covered community? 
2. Does the positive engagement /influence of various stakeholders effectively supports the advocacy for children’s rights and prevention of early pregnancy?  
3. Does this kind of project that promotes sexual education is now acceptable and will be supported by elders and partner stakeholders nowadays knowing that Philippines is still known as conservative Christian country? 
4. Men/boys were the primary perpetrators of teenage pregnancy and violence against women and children. If men and young boys were also understand and values the rights of women/girls, understand gender equality in terms of responsibilities in the family, school, political and community, and capacitated as advocates and protector of women and children’s rights, does will bring a huge impact on the prevention of violence against women and contributes to decrease cases of teenage pregnancy? 

 Through the project, significant changes at the individual and community levels were achieved. Amongst the most significant changes observed by YKBI are the following: 

• Majority of the 320 teenage mothers demonstrated awareness and understanding on reproductive health. They became aware of their health needs and learned how to access available health services both by themselves and for their children. 

• 82% of 320 teenage mothers understood and applied their roles as responsible parents to their children and realized the importance of breastfeeding to their health and to their child. Most young mothers affirmed the importance of first 1000 days of the child being the foundation of a child’s life.  

• 86% of teenage mothers became aware on women and children’s rights and they are now knowledgeable on how to protect themselves from possible abuses. 

• Majority of the teenage mothers were able to go back to school (via the Alternative Learning Sysytem) through online and modular learning set up and realized the importance of education for their future. 

• The MOA between the local government unit (LGU) and YKBI was forged and it greatly help in getting the support of the barangay local government units and in the identification of advocacy champions both. 

To achieve such, YKBI enumerated the following as the most effective strategies they employed:  

• Strong Partnerships and collaborations with LGU. The project supported the initiatives of the City government to strengthen Adolescent Health and Development Program. At the same time, the LGU and the frontline agencies supported the project by providing counterparts both in technical aspects and on materials and supported the rightsholders group to access the government services on health, education, and other services. 

“There is regular support extended by one of the City Councilor (Ms. Carla Adajar) who visited all the community and school based ASRH/symposium sessions and look forward to the success of the project has brought encouragement/inspiration to the youth and teenage mothers. She advocated the participants to own the project by saying “Own and value this project to be able to succeed and to be able to help the youth in the community. There will come a time when it will be your turn to say this to your future children and community. Remember that the children and youth are the hope of the nation.” 

• Peer to peer approach. The youth themselves have great influence to their peers. Volunteer Peer Advocates (VPAs), as the advocacy arm of YKBI, were trained and empowered to facilitate the sessions with young mothers in the communities and schools using informal discussions and IEC materials.  

“The engagement of young mothers as advocates and the existing volunteers maximizes their potentials as valuable human resource in the community. Volunteer Peer Advocates brought lasting and positive changes in their communities, and they are considered effective advocates of teenage pregnancy prevention.” 

“There is now a total of 38 trained VPAs. They are actively facilitating community-based sessions; others are now working, returned to school and having small enterprise. VPAs have elected their own officers during the VPA Monthly Meeting in February 2020. The officers of VPA lead the conduct of community-based activities and coordination to the partners. YKBI is planning to organize the Teenage Mothers of San Pablo as Youth Organization for them to have stronger voice and participation in the community and government planning.  The officers of VPA also participated in the conduct of Policy Advocacy Training 1 wherein they are critical in the review of the existing ordinances, legislations and plans of the City Government related to the protection and prevention of adolescence pregnancy.” 

OR  

The support system built between teenage mothers brings power and confidence to everyone.  

“First, we have created a messenger group chat of teenage mothers per Barangay as we are maximizing the social media platform for easier communication for mobilization. As time flies, teenage mothers had established camaraderie and confidence to each other. Our messenger group had been an open wall for teenage mothers asking for advises specially those who will give birth to their first baby, sharing issues with their families, and even advertising for their newly started personal businesses. We, VPA and other teenage mothers gave all our efforts and in the best of our knowledge to answer their queries.” – Demi John Cosico, Teenage Mother, VPA 

• Information Education Materials (IEC) such as signage’s/billboards, brochures, and posters/comics. These helped generate community-wide awareness and support. The LGU also reproduced additional IEC materials to reach more individuals and duty bearers in the community. 

• Adoption of social media and other online platforms, such as Facebook group chat, videos, text blast, and webinars. It helped facilitate fast and timely coordination, mobilisation and communication among and between partners, rightsholders group, and stakeholders during project implementation. 

Links to outputs 

Video documentation of the lessons learned of a young mother as a result of her project participation. Available at YKBI Facebook page:  https://fb.watch/3hyPcTtSJ7/ 

Future plans 

“We believe we can replicate the project in another province while Volunteer Peer Advocates can continue their work as a sector advocating teenage pregnancy prevention and protecting more teenage parents within their locality and within the province.” 

The trained Volunteer Peer Advocates (VPAs) being also teenage mothers has enabled realized their worth and potential as well as their rights and their responsibilities not only to themselves but to others as well. This has been expressed by the VPAs in their reflections and learning’s as a result of their engagement to the project. And being advocates they can continue to learn and share their learning with others in the group and in the community.  

The engagement of Volunteer Peer Advocates (VPA’s) to the projects help them to internalize the vision and mission of YKBI as an organization and they are interested to become a member of YKBI as advocates. By organizing the group of teenage mothers, they were able to build their capacities and life skills as shown by their positive behavioral change and conviction. The sessions/togetherness among the teenage mothers also finds healing integration on their issues and concerns among their families.