The Vista Youth

SOMETHING SMELLS

NEGROS DAILY BULLETIN

By Alan S. Gensoli

The Vista Youth. The children with a view. A view of a cleaner, greener, and flood-free Bacolod. In time, Vista Youth will probably become a byword in the Solid Waste Management campaign in Bacolod. 

Last Dec. 1, 2008, while many were enjoying an extended weekend at the beach, the Bacolod Anti-Baha Alliance conducted a whole-day seminar on Solid Waste Management (SWM) and how to conduct an Information Education Communication (IEC) campaign about it. To put these two in proper perspective, IEC is the way to promote SWM. IEC has many components or manners of execution, including media exposure and putting up signages in public places, but since the challenge to IEC is primarily educating people, the majority of the work is face-to-face communication. The seminar last Dec. 1 was held at Brgy. Vista Alegre in Bacolod, and is part of an ongoing effort of the Anti-BAHA involving Vista Alegre as a pilot project for SWM implementation. 

The choice of Vista Alegre was prompted by the emergence of Purok Abada-Escay, the city’s latest resettlement area. 

With the addition of Abada-Escay alone, Vista Alegres total population blossomed twice over, from 7,500 residents to 15,000. And we all know, with population growth comes a corresponding increase in garbage generation. Double the people and you double the mess. 

Conducting the seminar was Joel Jaquinta, who comes with proven experience in SWM implementation. Joel was the SWM coordinator of E.B. Magalona during the mayorship of Alfonso “Diding” Gamboa, a valuable member of the Anti-BAHA. It was also attended by Provincial Ecological Solid Waste Management Coordinator Ruby Arribas, who gave a very inspiring introduction to the seminar. We have worked with various government officials before, and I am so glad to finally meet someone, in the person of Ruby, who shares our concern about garbage and the urgency to find solutions to our garbage problem. Specifically, Ruby Arribas agrees with us that education is perhaps the most important foundation of SWM, and as such, the most critical requisite to a successful SWM. It is for this reason that I appeal to our city government to begin and sustain any and all IEC campaigns, but especially barangay seminars such as what we did last Dec. 1. Without these seminars, any SWM effort is a photo op. 

The audience for our Vista Alegre seminar was made up of youth leaders, around five from each of the 16 puroks of Vista Alegre. But why the youth? First, the youth have the energy to go around puroks, knocking on doors house-to-house to disseminate IEC information. Second, the youth have the extra time on their hands to work on the IEC campaign, the elders work during most of the day. Third, the youth do not have deep-set bad habits about garbage, so it is more likely that they will be convinced to practice SWM. Fourth, the youth are the biggest stakeholders of SWM because the future of the community belongs to them. And fifth, the youth have a proven track record of running successful IEC campaigns here in the Philippines and around the world. So, why reinvent the wheel? And so, the Vista Youth. 

During the seminar, the Vista Youth were enjoined into a workshop where they drew maps of their puroks and identified areas, such as road corners, open canals, eskenitas, esteros, etc., where they’ve seen garbage piles. They were then asked how they envisioned to transform these into garbage-free areas. The workshop was not only fun, it was also very strategic because problem areas were specifically targeted. 

When you are doing something good and right, God sends blessings your way. And so it happened that three of the Vista Youth who attended our seminar are students at the national high school in Vista Alegre. The following school day, they reported their experience to their principal who, by the grace of God, is an environmentalist at heart. Principal Gladys Sales invited the Anti-BAHA to speak to her students. We were obviously excited about this development as this could result in a faster and wider spread of the IEC campaign...and the mushrooming of the Vista Youth, of course. And so, on Dec. 5, we went back to Vista Alegre to talk to Junior and Senior high school students, all eager to learn about the city’s garbage problem, and what they can do as agents of IEC. 

Ms. Sales had planned that on the following Monday, Dec. 8, she would start a campaign called “Basura Mo, Ibulsa Mo.” Candies will be given out to her 300-some students during the flag ceremony on Mondays who will then be reminded to keep their candy wrappings in their pockets. This habit-forming activity, inspired by a similar project done successfully by Marikina Mayor Marides Fernando, will surely keep the school and the surroundings candy-wrapper-free, perhaps a first step to declaring the school campus PLASTIC-FREE! The higher goal is, of course, for students to bring their acquired good habit home and inspire their families and neighbors to do the same. The principal also shared that a bulletin board be set up where students will write their “environmental” promises to live by. 

We are very happy with the way Vista Alegre folk, including their barangay officials and school teachers, received our SWM efforts. We are especially proud of the Vista Youth. If their efforts succeed, and with dedication from all of us I know it will, the Vista Youth will become the city’s first youth force in SWM. That’s a mighty noble achievement. 

City Hall has the responsibility of educating all of us about SWM. Thus, City Hall is responsible for running IEC campaigns. I have seen some TV commercials, heard some radio reminders, and read banners on the city’s garbage dump trucks, all reminding us to segregate. These efforts by City Hall are all good, but before we can remind people to segregate, we must first teach them how to segregate. I suggest to City Hall to conduct intensive seminars in barangays, and to adopt the idea behind the Vista Youth for all the youth of Bacolod to come on board the SWM campaign. Let all the children of Bacolod become members of the Vista Youth...the children with a view...a view of a cleaner, greener, flood-free Bacolod.*