Pinoy Youth

If you have any doubt that companies and even governments are targeting young people in their information and communication campaign, you can set those doubts aside now. Even during the Economic recession in the United States, companies are still themselves how to target the youth and young adults so they could continue making these youngsters spend their money. This is a real lesson for teenagers and for young adults in the United States and in the Philippines. Be wary of advertisements telling you to spend your money. These people want you to enjoy the best they have to offer yet at the expense of you and your parents’ financial stability in these difficult times. So be really critical and careful in spending those hard earned bucks.

Twitter and Young People

Nielsen released a report lately claiming that Teens are not very fond of Twitter, the microblogging and social networking Web platform. This has important implications for those who are reaching out to young people. If young people are in Twitter, then it makes sense for these marketers to expand their presence there. Before the emergence of Twitter, Facebook is a very big thing among young people. Now that Twitter is becoming a big marketing and promotional tool, people just want to know if it’s worth establishing presence via Twitter.

According to the Nielsen report:

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The National Heroes’ Day came and went on August 31. Is the sense of heroism still alive among the Filipino youth?

The Manila Times Editorial didn’t think so. But perhaps, the lament is not only directed to the youth but to the overall Filipino society:

“It is not just the youth, though.The majority of Filipinos in every generation—young and old—do not have the proper sense of history, no thirst for knowledge about our heroes and the conditions they labored in, no wish to learn what the Filipinos of earlier generations did to survive and develop, what amused them, what made them weep, what gave them joy.”

Let’s break down these accusations and try to address them one by one.

No Proper Sense of History. Filipinos, in general, do not have a strong sense of history. This can be seen in the way that the voters keep on electing people accused of wrongdoing against the Filipino society in the past. In this time and age of globalization and increasing online connectivity, most young people become interested in computers, fashion and gadgets.

Bantayog ng mga Bayani

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After church service yesterday, I met with about ten youth leaders from the Northwest Quezon City District of the QCPACE of the United Methodist Church (don’t we just love abbreviations?). We talked about the upcoming Christmas Institute. This is the annual Christmas camp for United Methodist youth ages 12-24. It’s a big event for most districts and what’s remarkable about it is that it is a program of youth, by youth and for youth.

Amazingly, as early as now, the youth leaders of NWQCD are thinking about what they will be doing in the Christmas Institute. Let me just present a number of observations about the Christmas Institute over the years that I’ve attended it and looked at it from a distance.

Christmas Institute is life-changing! A lot of youth who attend the Christmas Institute get to meet Christ more deeply and decide to embark on a lifetime adventure with him. Some of these youth become Christians. Some of those who are already Christians decide to take their faith to the next level of commitment. If you talk to a lot of Methodist Pastors and deaconesses, they will point out to the Christmas Institute as the turning point for their decision to enter the ministry.

Christmas Institute brings together youth from all walks of life. This variety of youth coming together can create an awareness of diversity among youth. They suddenly begin to open their eyes to a wider reality of the world as they come in contact with youth who are not from their background. As they learn about social issues and the application of the Methodist faith, they also widen their perspective about the world they live in.

I myself have experienced the power of the Christmas Institute. I have come to know our faith better and such knowledge enabled me to commit and serve with the young people of the church. My continuous presence in the church and in youth ministry is a testimony to how powerful the C.I. is.

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This is the transcript of my presentation at the Celebrate Family Seminar of the Greenhills Christian Fellowship on June 27, 2009.

You can download the presentation by clicking here.

The emergence of the Internet is one of the most amazing things that happened in the twentieth century. It revolutionized the way we handle and access information.

Simply put, the Internet is a network of networks, a massive interconnection of computers all over the world. It is different from the World Wide Web, which is a wide collection of interconnected documents, hypertext and hyperlinks. The Web is but one of the communication services being provided in the Internet.

Features of the Internet

Email
World Wide Web
Remote Access
Online collaboration
File sharing
Streaming media
Voice over Internet Protocol

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The people of Iran are going through their own version of people power. With the disputed presidential elections in Iran, young people and women support the opposition amid arrests of journalists and other social activists. According to NY Times, this is the most sustained challenge to the Iranian government since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

There were, however, growing signs of divisions within the alliance united behind Mr. Ahmadinejad. Members of Parliament upset with the brutality of the government crackdown summoned the interior, justice and intelligence ministers to a hearing.

“I don’t think anyone really knows what comes next,” said an Iranian political analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution by the government. “Most likely, we are going to enter a period of relative uncertainly, with ebbs and flows, until the Islamic Republic of Iran is altered or finds a new avenue for legitimacy.”

Interestingly, about 70% of Iran’s population are under the age of 30.

I have been reading the commentary about the news at NY Times, reading the take of some Iranian, American and Islamic scholars about the Iranian situation. According to Hamid Dabashi,

If you were to follow youth culture in Iran at the turn of the century — from the rise of a fascinating underground music (particularly rap) to a globally celebrated cinema, an astonishing panorama of contemporary art, video installations, photography, etc. — you would have noted the oscillation of this generation between apathy and anger, frustration and hope, disillusion and euphoria. In their minds and souls, as in their blogs and chat rooms, they were wired to the globalized world, and yet in their growing bodies and narrowing social restrictions trapped inside an Islamic version of Calvinist Geneva. Read the full story at NY Times.

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