#SpeakOutZambo: A platform for Zamboanga youth engagement

Regine Mendoza

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#SpeakOutZambo: A platform for Zamboanga youth engagement
The old challenge the young to be more proactive and demand greater accountability

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – Discussions and insights about issues among the youth sector mainly stay at the bottom of Twitter feeds or left unanswered as Facebook status posts. But this soon change in Zamboanga City.

Through a monthly outlet – Speak Out!: The Zamboanga Youth Forum 2014 – young people can participate in face-to-face dialogue with local government officials and concerned line agency heads. This serves as the venue for them to directly voice out thoughts on significant issues in the city through creative engagement.

“You have been given the opportunity to become young servants of your communities. Grab that opportunity. Take the opportunity, my dear young people, to speak,” Mayor Maria Isabelle “Beng” Climaco-Salazar addressed the youth in the event.

The first Zamboanga youth forum was organized this June 20 with at least a hundred participants from student councils, school and community-based organizations, LGBT youth groups, fraternities, out-of-school youth, and representatives from indigenous communities in attendance.

The vision

It is through the monthly informal exchange of conversations that policies and programs of the city government may meet the pulse of the young public.

Each forum is grouped into TalkClouds – composed of an array of youth leaders and a leader of the local sector.

Discussions are not limited to within the forum, however. The social media hub shall cluster all online input of the youth even after each event to sustain discussion and to monitor government action through its official hashtag: #SpeakOutZambo.

“I’ve always wanted to give the youth a voice,” Climaco said in her message.

TALKCLOUDS. The launch of the first Zamboanga Youth Forum was attended by a hundred youth participants, local government offices and line agencies heads. Photo by Christian Olasiman

Hot topics

Each month, a topic shall be identified by the youth leaders as the point of discussion. Resource persons will be invited to shine more light to the issue.

During the recent forum, a hot topic was the daily 10-hour rotational power interruptions. Netizens have humorously dubbed Zamboanga as “Asia’s Blackout City.”

POWER TALK. Youth from different sectors engage with ZAMCELCO General Manager Engr. George Ledesma in a TalkCloud to seek light on the power supply situation of the city. Photo by Christian Olasiman

Through the forum, the general manager of the Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative (ZAMCELCO) Engr. George Ledesma enlightened those present and encouraged the youth to act more and complain less, “What’s the use of student leaders if you don’t walk the talk?”

A survey conducted during the first forum shows that the most pressing concerns of the youth are education, governance, Muslim-Christian relations, human rights, global warming, and employment.

Also present in the forum were local government heads from the city’s water district, investment promotions, health office, police, social welfare and development, among others.

“Amazing how personally talking to the heads of the offices about pressing issues can now bring light to the youths’ minds,” one of the youth participants expressed on Twitter.

The youth forum is a joint project of the Office of the City Mayor, the United States Agency for International Development, Count Me In, MyDev, Engage, MindaHealth, The Asia Foundation, and the Social Action Center of the Archdiocese of Zamboanga. – Rappler.com

Regine Mendoza is a Communication student of the Ateneo de Zamboanga University. She is a researcher for International Organization for Migration and a former Rappler intern.

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