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 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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Teen pregnancies seem to be becoming prevalent in our society. I’ve been to a number of youth camps and youth training institutes. I usually get invited to speak about the situation of young people in the Philippines and how we should deal with youth.

Teenage pregnancy comes up almost always. It’s a pressing issue, don’t you think?

Let’s forget for a minute about the right attitude towards sexuality and deal with the experiences of our friends, relatives, the friends of our friends, and our schoolmates.

Do you know a teenager who got pregnant out of wedlock?

When I ask this question in youth camps, almost all hands come up. Without having to use statistics and numerical values, we recognize that teen pregnancy is indeed a problem in our society. Our population is now running at 90 million. With teenagers becoming sexually active, we cannot hope to reduce our country’s rate of population growth.

Last Saturday, I encountered an interesting article entitled “Teen pregnancies in the Philippines” from the Philippine Daily Inquirer. This article was written by Dr. Rebecca B. Singson, a strong advocate of female reproductive and women’s health issues.

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Some organizations claim that they are youth-driven, but led by adults. There are some organizations though that are “for youth, by youth, and with youth”. When young people are given leadership positions and they are empowered and supported, they can bring out their creativity and youthful idealism in fulfilling the role of the leader. Young people in leadership can offer several benefits to the organization.

For one, youth leaders know how to deal with other young people who belong to their generation. Since they belong to their generation, they know the language of young people, the likes, dislikes, and interests of other young people. This is very important in the context of youth ministry. Youth leaders can engage other young people more easily. If the organization’s thrust is mobilizing young people and enabling them to reach out to others, having a youth leader will definitely help achieve such thrust.

Youth leaders have the energy, the humor, and the spirit to achieve goals. As long as these young people believe in what they are doing, they can give 100% of their attention and their time. They are passionate, dedicated, and willing to sacrifice their time just to achieve their avowed goals. Since youth also have fewer responsibilities in life like buying tons of baby milk and diapers, they can devote more time for the organization or ministry they have chosen.

Uhm… well, there are teenagers and young people who are on the hurry to add up their responsibilities in life in exchange of a one night stand. But that’s an altogether different topic that deserves a separate post.

Photo above courtesy of 3Rock Youth.

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For the longest time, I have been looking for books, materials, and references dealing with the leadership needs of young people from a distinctly Filipino perspective. I went to various bookstores in search of such materials. Too bad, I haven’t found any.

There are books on leadership–John Maxwell’s books easily dominate the list. Stephen Covey, Ken Blanchard, and Peter Drucker also come close. Yet, books dealing with youth leadership specifically are rare and most of them usually come from other countries, mainly the United States.

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