Learning from Philippines!

On last June, YSNAP got a chance to learn from Family Planning Organization of the Philippines about youth mobilisation. Philippines is one of the country where young people and particularly young people in SRHR movement involve meaningfully.

We were visiting three of FPOP’s chapters; Iloilo, GenSan, and Tandang Sora and met a lot of dynamic young people!

Outreach activity by FPOP Iloilo chapter

The youth network in Gensan chapter where young people from different activism has worked together to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS.

Two dynamics young people in GenSan, Marie and Fitz who facilitated session on youth’s sexuality.

In the mid of our visit, we were having a dinner with some youth advocates in Manila. They shared a lot to us their experience working with youth’s SRHR and Reproductive Health Bill that has not yet been passed by Congress in Philippines for 14 years! The dinner was nice and we got a lot of insight how YSNAP can build youth network in regional level.

Our last visit is to Tandang Sora chapter where at that time we visited them, they were doing outreach and mobile clinics to young Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) and Transgender (TG) community.

To sum up, it’s fun to be in Philippines where young people are very dynamic and have a lot of room to explore!

Y-SNAP in Cambodia!

On the last 22^nd – 23rd May 2012, Y-SNAP was organizing Capacity Building on Sexual Rights and Youth Mobilization along with Youth peer educator in RHAC – Reproductive Health Association Cambodia. 15 peer educators from Phnom Penh were attending this workshop.

A lot of topics on Sexual rights such as access to safe abortion, same-sex marriages, forced marriages, comprehensive sexuality education, and HIV and AIDS were discussed and participants were divided into groups and they should defend their arguments. Topics on advocacy in regional and international level were also discussed and we were mapping advocacy venue that can be used for strengthening young people’s voices.

At the end of this workshop, we were decided to form RHAC Youth Network. This youth network are intended to facilitate youth peer educator in RHAC to share their works, experience, and more importantly to advocate for young people’s access to Comprehensive Sexuality Education and Youth Friendly Services in Cambodia.

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Linking sexual and reproductive rights and youth mobilization, how could that be?

What is the first thing comes to your mind when we speak about sexual and reproductive rights? When we refer to the concept, it could be very conceptual and unpractical, do you agree? We have conducted a capacity building with youth from Indonesia Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPA) and discuss a lot of hot spot issues in sexual and reproductive rights and youth mobilization!

The training was held on 11 and 12 January 2012 and each day there’s a focus on the training. On the first day, we discuss about safe abortion, same sex marriages, female circumcision, condom access for young people aged 10-17 years old, and sex workers! And guess what, the discussion becomes even hotter during the sessions and we have jump into conclusion; no matter what your personal value is, when you commit to work in SRHR field, you have to treat other people with rights-based perspective and leave the choice to them.

On the second they, the discussion was on building the organizational capacity of youth within IPPA. We mapped the participation of young people within IPPA, analyze on how we can move as youth within organization, and how to link IPPA with other youth led organization or communities in Indonesia. Based on the Flower of participation model by Choice, the analysis on the level of participation of youth in the youth center and clinic in  IPPA Jakarta Chapter can be a good example in which meaningful youth participation and youth adult partnership has been achieved. Youth in IPPA Jakarta Chapter has high responsibility within the organisation where they are given spaces to initiate their idea, and their idea are shared with the adult volunteers and staff once they are planning to make any decision. It is interesting to know how this process happened and perhaps can be a good model to be replicated in realising youth adult equal partnership.

It was found that youth in IPPA has conducted various activities and made a lot of progress in working with marginalized youths.  However, their initiative and activities are rarely documented to be read by young people or relevant people.  Most of their work goes into project report.  Well, how do you respond to this challenge to have a documentation process and to make these documents accessible to young people and all?