City Popcom boosts AHYD amid a pandemic
The challenges in the midst of the pandemic in no way avert the City Population Office (City Popcom) to boost the implementation of its Adolescent Health and Youth Development (AHYD).
To substitute the face to face lectures and counseling, City Popcom turned to online conferencing to continue reaching the youth by partnering with the schools. The Google meeting enabled the City Popcom presenters, led by OIC-City Population Officer Janet Demonteverde toget their message across to a mass audience. Discussionscovered topics related to basic concepts of gender and development, human sexuality, changes caused by puberty and adolescence, and the consequences of too early sexual involvement.
On the other hand, as part of the AHYD, the City Popom participates every Saturday in collaboration with the Department of Education – City Schools in the Tira Brigada program to further intensify and discuss their campaign. In one of his statements, AHYD Coordinator Ryan Mark B. Manipulo said that the intervention was critical due to depression and suicide among youth these days, which can be credited to today’s’ more troublesome circumstance due to the pandemic.
As part of the AHYD program, mental health awareness hasbeen the main theme of the conferences-teaching young people to identify the common stressorstheyface today and its causes. Although very alarmingand seriously dangerous to their physical and mental health and cannot be cured immediately, the City Popcom is confident that through continuous intervention, their program will impact the youth and will address their mental well-being issues. Also, the program aims to develop and improve the life skills a young person will need to cope with stress, depression, and other mental health issues. Part of it also suggests alternative activities that will help maintain a balanced lifestyle and improve their mental health.
The City Popcom similarly wants to continue with their barangay based up close and personal talks dubbed as KABARKADA when it is allowed to conduct huge gatherings to connect with more young people and even to the out-of-school youth.
Kabarkada or “peer” is a project that advances the health and sexuality aspects. It aims to enhance the physical, social, emotional and spiritual aspects of advancement with an attention on psychological wellness.