Empowered Youth of Cadiz

Your donation will help educate youth living in Cadiz City, a small sugar farming town in the Philippines, to become responsible leaders in their community!



Empowered Youth of Cadiz (EYC) Empowered Youth of Cadiz (EYC) is a youth led peer education program that links adolescents from two local neighborhoods in Cadiz to trained medical service providers to educate them on a variety of healthy and safe practices to delay sexual initiation or reduce sexual risks among adolescents. Additionally, EYC provides important information on the risks and disadvantages of early pregnancy, equips adolescents with practical and safe decision making skills to influence healthy choices and behaviors, and strengthens their self-esteem. EYC also aims to promote alternative practices like sports and the arts to delay sexual initiation or reduce sexual risks among these adolescents.

The concern of adolescents becoming pregnant at an early age in Cadiz, as well as dropping out of school and engaging in risky behaviors, contributes to the realization of EYC. The main livelihood of the community includes fishing and sugar cane farming and consequently, many students are currently dropping out of school to work alongside their parents and support their families. Approximately 80% of these laborers are living the below the poverty line and often times out of desperation, these out of school youth are resorting to sexual behaviors to earn money for their families. As a result, youth are becoming pregnant at an early age and contracting a variety of STIs and STDs that are putting both themselves and others in danger. We hope that by creating youth led peer groups to educate the community about reproductive health and abstinence techniques, we can tackle many of these issue and initiate change in the community.

Through 6 weeks of training, peer educators are learning managerial and administrative techniques, improved communication and observation practices, and how to offer responsible advice for their peers. Additionally, they are learning skills like teamwork, leadership, communication, and volunteerism. Neighborhood health workers and volunteer nurses from the Cadiz City Health Office are also leading sessions and becoming increasingly aware of their commitment to community development while expanding their expertise of adolescent reproductive health information to peer educators and participants alike.

Furthermore,we anticipate that subsequent phases of the project will expand the trainings among peer educators to provide installations of EYC in every neighborhood and potentially every school in Cadiz. We will know whether the project is reaching its goals and objectives though pre and post evaluations of peer educators and EYC participants, monitored activities to assess skills retained and gained during workshops, active journals among participants, attendance sheets, and interviews with participants and their families. The bimonthly "kamaradahans"  or "hangouts" will provide supports for EYC peer educators and particpants alike and build on community networking. We can also monitor successes with increased community participation from parents and families, active involvement of the city health office's MCH workers, and a commitment on behalf of the project participants.

Our primary expenses include:
- Neighbood hall rental (for training sessions)
- Projector, microphone, and speaker rental (for training sessions)
- Lunches and snacks for particpants and trainers
- Training materials (construction paper, markers, pamphlets, printer paper, etc.)
-Tshirts and badges for peer educators and trainers

Your donation will help us fund 6 weeks of training sessions this June - August (2014) for 30- 3rd and 4th year high school students from Villacin National High School in Cadiz City to become EYC peer educators.

Take a stand. Make a statement. Join EYC!






(Grade 7 girls from Cadiz City recognizing their rights.)