Harnessing Youth’s Community-changing Ideas

After a series of rigorous nationwide screenings in search for the best social marketing ideas around the country, Unilab Ideas Positive has chosen 12 student teams to implement their community-changing projects with a seed money of P100, 000 each. To help them prepare for their project implementation, Unilab Ideas Positive gathered these teams in a 3-day social marketing boot camp led by the country’s topmost and well-known social marketing practitioners at the Unilab Bayanihan Center in Mandaluyong City.

Among the 12 finalists, Team Five for Life (Metro Manila), Tamang TEAMpla (Metro Manila), Team Kabataang Katipuneros (Iloilo City) and Team Green Label (Davao City) focused their efforts on solving their community’s main issue of malnutrition through fun and innovative ideas such as nutrition plate guides and cooking contests. Meanwhile, Team Ba (Baguio City) and Team FNEC (Bicol) focused on improving the hygiene practices of Benguet school children and Muslim Maranao settlers respectively.

Taking on the challenge of environmental care and preservation, Team Protogenia (Batangas) proposed to train the Badjaos of Batangas on how to best utilize their surroundings for methods of self-sustenance while Team W.A.Y.A. (Iloilo City) suggested a mussel-conservation campaign. On the other hand, water-oriented projects were recommended by Team Matalaw (Batangas) and Team JEYTUDITUSI (Cavite) as they sought to establish clean-up efforts for their rivers while Team Bang (Cebu) and Team Transits (Cebu) developed water-filtering systems.

“Unilab Ideas Positive was developed to create meaningful change towards the nation. We seriously take our role as a health and wellness company in building the nation, which is the reason behind the nationwide expansion of the program this year,” shared Unilab Ideas Positive program lead Barry Barrientos. “Knowing that change starts with small steps, we built Unilab Ideas Positive to partner with and give a platform for the youth to ‘positivize’ the Philippines in true Bayanihan spirit, one community at a time.”

The 12 teams took time to pose for a shot during the boot camp

As part of their learning adventure, the students spent time with the country’s best industry practitioners: social marketing guru Dr. Ned Roberto, social entrepreneurs Mark Ruiz, Reese Fernandez-Ruiz, Jayson Lo, Krie Reyes-Lopez and Chit Juan, and creative and communication strategist Peachy Pacquing. Dr. Ivanhoe Escartin of the DOH National Center for Health Promotion gave the students an overview of the country’s health and wellness landscape. Meanwhile, social marketing consultants and academicians Harvey Keh, Ma. Christine Reyes and Dr. Sylvia Claudio, among others, dug into the implementation details of the students’ projects to ensure smooth rollout. Social advocate Jay Jaboneta and award-winning director Jim Libiran also inspired the participants with their stories of their own advocacies.

The teams were also brought to the Gawad Kalinga (GK) Enchanted Farm in Bulacan to witness social marketing and innovation in action, led by a talk by GK Founder and President Tony Meloto.

The Unilab Ideas Positive 2011 winners—Grand Winner Team High 5, Runners-up Team AweEights and Team KaBaLiKAT—also shared their boot camp and project implementation experience.

 “Assuming our newfound roles as agents of positive change in their chosen communities, we have learned the basics of social marketing and even immersed ourselves in actual social marketing practices in preparation for our very own project implementation,” shared Jhanette Co of 2011 Unilab Ideas Positive Grand Prize winner, Team High 5.

In the next six months, all 12 student teams will be implementing their projects in their respective communities, mentored by social marketing practitioners from around the country. From the 12, the five most successful youth teams in project implementation will advance to the finals for a chance to become the Unilab Ideas Positive 2012 grand winner.

For more information on the event and each team’s progress, visit www.Facebook.com/Unilab.IdeasPositive and www.unilabideaspositive.com. Follow us on Twitter via @ideaspositive.