ASIA: Youth Media Poised to Bring About Social Change
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By Joel Chong ‘Aral Ani’ (loosely translated as ‘harvest learning’) made its debut in its native Philippines earlier this year. Following the story of a 17-year old child farmer and his desire for a formal education, the 10-minute documentary won a national film festival prize back home. “I’m really proud because we have this opportunity [to] help other children to raise their concerns,” said its 17-year-old director Leah Grace Banares. In Jaldhaka, Bangladesh, Hafizul Islam stages dramas in his local community addressing social issues such as child marriage, malnutrition, and child rights. “For the first few days it was very hard for me as I had to face all those audiences. I felt that everyone was looking at me and I was a bit shy… now I play so many dramas in my area, on [various] issues,” said the 15-year-old. Banares and Islam are just two of the many children under the Young Hearts project from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam who participated in the Young Hearts Youth Arts and Media Festival in this Thai capital on Oct. 3-4. Organised by Plan Asia, a children’s development organisation, the Young Hearts project provides media and arts training to children from six different countries in Asia. The aim of said project is to raise awareness about and confront the rampant cases of violence in schools today. The United Nations Violence Against Children Study in 2006 revealed that between 20 and 65 percent of school-aged children worldwide fell victims to verbal and physical bullying. The same study said that children in East Asia and the Pacific, home to nearly half of the world’s children, suffer many forms of violence. Plan’s report conducted between 2003 and 2005 titled ‘Learn Without Fear’, a global campaign to stop violence in schools, showed that bullying is a common occurrence in schools across the globe. Other common forms of violence include corporal punishment and sexual violence perpetrated by their peers and teachers. The same report, however, acknowledged the lack of data on the case in Asia due to lack of research on the issue. “But studies that do exist suggests millions of children across the continent are regular victims of bullies,” cited the report. “Youth media is one of the most powerful strategies in bringing the voice of children to the world,” said Myrna Evora, regional director for Plan Asia. “Youth media is a dynamic force of social change… through Plan’s Young Hearts project, over 3,000 Asian youths have received media training.” Banares, along with other selected youths in her country, started receiving basic and advanced media training in photography, video, and radio production two years ago in the Philippines through Plan’s local branch. Media professionals who teamed up with Plan to mentor the children also arranged visits to local television and radio stations for the children. Rolan Saludario, an 18-year-old participant also from the Philippines, acknowledged that not everything was smooth sailing initially. “It was so challenging, because it was our first time touching video cameras, even capturing pictures, it was so different,” he said. Saludario and Banares have since gone on to produce numerous Public Service Announcements (PSAs) for their local community, particularly dealing with issues related to their peers such as bullying in schools and rights of children. One, for instance, tried raising awareness for proper nutrition among schoolchildren by showing a film of a young boy imagining his schoolteacher was a fried chicken after not eating anything before school. “There has been a lot of changes in our community… the problem of violence in our schools lessened, children know that they have a right to education… not only teachers can commit violence, even students, even their families can commit violence, causing them to be afraid to go to school,” said Saludario. A 2008 study by Plan Philippines, which interviewed 2,442 children from 58 public schools in three provinces, showed that violence come in the form of ridicule and teasing in various degrees of intensity. Findings revealed that 50 to 70 percent of grade school children and 60 percent of high school students have fallen prey to violence. Among the more serious forms of violence among schoolchildren in the Philippines range from the spreading of malicious rumours to physical abuse, sexual harassment and gang rape, and forced drug use. A 2004 World Health Organisation study on school-based student healthy survey in the Philippines also revealed that 20 percent of bullied students were “most often hit, kicked, pushed, shoved, or locked indoors”. Physical bullying was common among 35.8 percent boys and 22.2 percent girls. Since he began staging dramas, Islam noticed that awareness of violence in schools has increased in his community. “I can’t say that there is no school bullying or corporal punishment, but it has been reduced...” “Staging dramas is not very much accepted in our society because people [here] are very rigid. For the first few days they didn’t like me and [adults] told their children not to be friends with me. But after they saw that I staging dramas based on social issues they started eventually accepting me, but for the first few days it wasn’t easy.” Plan’s study showed that bullying is a serious problem in Bangladesh, with 30 percent of students admitting that they have bullied someone “at least once over the past year”. The idea of using youth to champion youth issues was not an idea formed overnight, but through observations from Plan over years of working with children. “We’ve discovered that when it was the teachers, or the government, or even our staff that ask the children what problems you encounter in schools, family, or the community, they’re much more guarded in anything that they want to say. But with youths they start talking,” said Maja Cubarrubia, Plan’s country director for Thailand. “And they [the youths] were able to capture the real problem that young people like them were encountering; arranged marriages, drugs and other problems that were affecting them… In our time we wouldn‘t even say anything if there are problems,” added Cubarrubia. “But because of the media… they can express what they’re feeling.” On the other hand, Evora also acknowledged that pressures from the community do affect the children. “While the pressure basically comes from the parents… but [eventually] parents realise that their children are benefiting, not only from the increased confidence, but also because in the community their children have become well known, have become respected.” The young generation also echoed this sentiment. “They’re really proud of us, they said that they now have a person who can raise up their concerns about learning without fear, their concern that they can go to school safely, and they [now] have no fear of their classmates and teachers,” said Banares. “I think now I can say to myself that before I was so ashamed when people are around me, I say that I have no talent, but now, look, I can do everything, I make difference in the world, and I feel so lucky… that I was given opportunity to help other children,” she told the AMF. 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Aung Htun (not his real name) is one of the young video journalists featured in the award-winning feature documentary 'Burma VJ (Reporting from a Closed Country)'. 
