Cotabato City,
Philippines, 11 July 2019 – UNICEF Philippines, Voluntary Service Overseas
(VSO) Philippines, the Office on the Bangsamoro Youth Affairs, and its partners
launch U-Report in the Philippines beginning in the Bangsamoro Region. U-Report
is an online platform developed and used globally by UNICEF to support
adolescent and youth engagement and participation.
Created by UNICEF, U-Report is a social messaging tool and
data collection system to improve adolescent and youth citizen engagement,
inform leaders, and foster positive change. It uses polls and alerts,
collecting real-time responses for raising adolescents and young people’s
voices that can guide in policy development and social accountability. It
includes real-time polling as one of its key functions.
The U-Report platform has reached communities in 54
countries around the world with almost seven million responders globally since
it was first launched in 2011. The launch of U-Report in the Philippines comes
as UNICEF and partners celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the
Rights of the Child (CRC), the most widely ratified human rights treaty in
history that has helped transform children’s lives around the world.
“The launch of U-Report in the Philippines, in particular in
the Bangsamoro Region comes at an important time. We in UNICEF believe that
young people’s ideas, passions and innovations could transform the future of
the Bangsamoro people. For this to happen, children and youth must be consulted, empowered and equipped to
make informed decisions, especially on matters affecting their health,
well-being and prospects for the future,” said Andrew Morris, UNICEF
Philippines Chief of Field Office in Mindanao.
U-Report Philippines is managed by a U-Report Steering
Committee with representation from adolescent and young people. In addition to
serving as U-Reporters, adolescents and young people, along with other members
of the steering committee, make sure that poll questions asked to U-Reporters are
relevant, appropriate and useful.
“U-Report is an exciting innovation to help us understand
the concerns of youth and adolescents in BARMM, especially now that we are
developing the Bangsamoro Youth Agenda. This tool can foster open communication
and make sure that we prioritize issues that children and youth are passionate
about,” Dr. Marjanie Mimbantas Macasalong, Executive Director of the Office on
the Bangsamoro Youth Affairs (OBYA) said.
“VSO’s youth intervention focuses on mobilizing young change
makers for greater social cohesion and durable peace in the Bangsamoro. We hope to develop youth volunteers who can
work with their communities to give them
a voice and to hold duty bearers to account, monitor development progress, and
ensure that policy makers consider the needs of adolescents and young people,”
Arlene Mahinay, VSO Philippines Head of Programme said.”
U-Report relies on volunteer U-Reporters to take an active
role and provide critical information to decision makers on issues affecting
their communities through polls. It is also a valuable tool for sharing
information through message alerts.
To become a U-Reporter, Bangsamoro youth only need to log
into their Facebook accounts, look for the U-Report Philippines page, open the
messenger app, and click “join.” Upon joining, U-Reporters can start participating
in polls and send reports.
“Through U-Report, we can make our voices heard by our
leaders and decision-makers in the Bangsamoro.
We hope that our Bangsamoro leaders will listen, take notice, and act on
issues that are important to the young people,” said Salic Macaraob, 21 years
old, a youth leader from Marawi City.
U-Report’s effectiveness has been seen in various programs
around the world.
In Indonesia, 4,000 U-Reporters shared that most young
people who had become victims of violence did not receive any form of
counselling and 15 percent had no idea where to report violence if they witness
it or experience it themselves. Results have been directly shared with the
Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection and 17 other relevant
government agencies in Indonesia.
In Uganda, every Member of Parliament has signed up for
U-Report to monitor and respond to what young people in their districts are
saying about key issues. Some leaders
have used it to strengthen immunization and other health campaigns.
In Sierra Leone during the collapse of Sugar Loaf Mountain
in the city of Freetown, U-Report sent out alerts and updates about various
ways to stay safe and access help.
In Pakistan, UNICEF and U-Report in Pakistan launched the
Menstrual Hygiene Innovation Challenge. A U-Report poll revealed that 49% of
young girls had no knowledge of menstruation prior to their first period and
that 23% of girls would most like to learn about menstruation in school.
Learn more about U-report here,
and become a Bangsamoro U-Reporter by clicking here.
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About UNICEF
UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything
we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to
translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on
reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all
children, everywhere.
For more information about UNICEF and its work for children visit www.unicef.org/philippines
