YOUTH EMPOWERMENT CONFERENCE:

ACTIVATING THEIR EXPOSURE IN CIVIC

ENGAGEMENT PARTICULARLY IN SUPPORTING
GLOBAL AWARENESS

Project Leader:

BALT, MOHAMMED SAEED A.

Members:

BALALA, ANGELA ICAH A.

BONIAO, LESTER CLARK JEFFERSON V.

BORJA JR., DINDO P.

Introduction

As educators, we must consider what we are doing to promote our students'

global consciousness in light of the fact that our most serious societal issues—climate
change, refugees, health crises, and the list goes on—are global in character.
Implementing global civic projects that provide students the chance to confront global
issues and injustices is a potent strategy. Such initiatives can help young people get a
wide grasp of societal issues, develop a sense of global solidarity, and advocate for
change on behalf of the welfare of all people on the planet. We noticed that many
students need knowledge about global awareness. In order to understand how
educators may encourage youth civic involvement in relation to social issues that have
global implications, we looked to academic research on global civic education. This
essay presents some of the learnings from this approach and gives us the chance to
suggest how a teacher could "extend" students' local civic interests in a way that
increases their global knowledge. We specifically propose a model global civic project
centered on the need for enhanced sex education that is rooted in students' local,
immediate reality after providing some basic information on youth civic engagement.
One of us, has experience with ninth-graders who implemented a project lobbying for
greater sex education in their school served as inspiration for this initiative. Although the
instructors and students in the high school initiative kept their attention on local issues,
he was able to imagine how it may have been expanded to include involvement with
global civic issues thanks to their work. We provide the illustration to help teachers think
of specific ways to encourage youth global awareness.

The importance of this project proposal is enough reason to pursue this project.
The following are the importance of the said proposal. It is important to comprehend
global awareness since it helps us realize how our daily actions affect individuals all
around the world. Young pupils have the best opportunity of becoming global citizens if
they approach the programs with a good attitude and are open to learning. On the other
hand, in a vibrant community, locals participate actively. People acquire and employ
information, skills, and voice through civic engagement, such as voting and volunteering
to foster positive change. Such as acts can aid in enhancing the factors that affect
everyone’s health and well - being. Citizenship has an impact on not only people but
also entire societies. There is a stronger feeling of community, less crime, and healthier
and happier residents in communities with higher civic involvement rates.

The common problem that we have today in our society are food insecurities,
climate change. These problems are mostly affected the youths. That’s why youths
should learn how to cope up with these problems and to provide solutions regarding
with these issues. First, to cope up with food insecurities, we should start in reducing
food waste. Also, solutions lie in local support. Helping villagers manage their local
natural resources sustainably by conserving soil, collecting water, repairing irrigation
systems, and halting biodiversity loss is a crucial part of the shared solutions to food
insecurity. Second, we need to immediately lessen our reliance on fossil fuels and
power rather than increasing it. Choose environmentally friendly alternatives like solar
and wind power. Become accustomed to recycling and reusing. Avoid throwing things
away and instead learn how to properly reuse them.

General Objectives

 Developing green (solar) and associated products

 Create awareness of energy, climate change, global warming, and green jobs
 Create a powerful foundation in civic studies
 Introduction of waste management
 Introduce the importance of sex education

Through conducting a webinar series regarding this.

Description of the Project

As educators implement initiatives incorporating the phases of problem

identification, problem inquiry, and action, the scholarship on global civic education
offers generative advice. We’ve highlighted three crucial suggestions that came out of
our research into the literature on global citizenship education, each of which is
connected to one of these phases (see Table 1). (e.g., Davies 2006; Gaudelli 2016;
Knight 2011; Leduc 2013; Mohanty 2002; Osler 2011; Schweisfurth 2006). Teachers
are urged to (1) value and stimulate their students' civic understanding of their local and
global communities, (2) support comparative analysis, and (3) motivate localized global
action.

We outline each suggestion below along with an example of how it may have
been used.

Any civic literacy effort that involves kids should begin by bringing up their civic
issues, which may be either local or global in scope. Students rose to the occasion,
raising concerns mostly about drug use and sex education in their school and
community. The ninth-grade teachers involved in the safe sex health project effectively
used an open forum for this purpose. While it is usual for pupils to demonstrate interest
in and familiarity with local issues (Osler, 2021), literature on global citizenship shows
how young people also have concerns about other countries. Kwame, a dual citizen of
the United States and Ghana, serves as a case study to illustrate how his transnational
immigrant identity, educational experiences, and Internet use fueled his concern for
racial and AIDS-related worldwide concerns.
 Concerning the worries about insufficient sex education in their school, we see
providing or running a webinar series connecting this issue with the prevalence of
HIV/AIDS around the world and the lack of efficient health education programs to fight
the disease. Teachers can help students share their insights, so they can eventually
increase their awareness of the global health crisis and the solutions being
implemented. These initiatives assist students in naming the worldwide expressions of
their immediate local concern about their own school's curriculum.

Students are prepared to take action once they have identified and researched
the current civic issue. Students talk to an audience of others while engaging in civic
engagement, and their efforts come across as relevant and genuine (Biesta 2007).
Organizing a safe sex fair, as the ninth-graders he studied did, might be a crucial first
step if students believe that their own school needs to enhance its sex education. The
purpose of the expo was to disseminate knowledge and promote sexual health. These
gatherings can also serve as forums where young people and other members of the
community can learn how to pressure their city's or state's department of education to
ensure more systemically effective sex education programs.

Furthermore, we envision high school students who are dedicated to the

advancement of sex education participating in community-based activities to promote
awareness of the worldwide HIV/AIDS epidemic and push for good sex education more
generally. This would result in local decision-making with a global perspective. The
research on global citizenship education shows how teachers and students can act in
their neighborhood to raise awareness of global issues or to try to solve a local
manifestation of a global issue. Students can participate in a variety of local initiatives to
advance global justice and raise understanding of the world. Using sex education as an
example, students can first discuss what they learned about initiatives in other nations,
such as the peer education program in Namibia, and provide suggestions for how their
school could benefit from these initiatives.

To influence public opinion, students might publicize the statistical data

demonstrating the advantages of successful health education cases from various
international contexts. Second, by addressing and cooperating with a global advocacy
movement, students may lobby for and with organizations like UNICEF and Oxfam and
"nearly skip" the local level. Teachers are faced with the difficulty of responding to the
various ways in which students' action moves may be viewed favorably or unfavorably
during the action component, civic literacy projects. The students' efforts may be
commended and exploited to further social justice, or they may be disparaged or
ignored when calling for change.

Because of this, it is essential that teachers have their pupils reflect on their
actions and put them in the perspective of civic participation. We particularly urge
educators and students to address the following three issues: What gave us our vigor?
What is coming up? Even when it seems like the students are bringing about change,
they are able to find new paths for action by answering these questions. Students can
come up with ideas on how they or others might continue to work on the civic issue in
the future if they feel they haven't made much of a difference, which is likely given the
size of the world's problems.

How is the project organized and how is it going to be managed?

This project will be organized by the students who proposed this project with the
help of the teachers and the guest speakers that will be invited to the said webinars. It
will be a three-day webinar series. Each day has different topics to be discussed. The
breakdown of the topics are following:

Days Topic
1 Political Activism
2 Community and National Service
3 Environmentalism

These webinars also give a certificate to those participants who participated.

Budget Breakdown

Expenses Total Amount

Speakers (talent fee) 3,000
Snacks 1,000
Venue 1,500
Certificates 700
Other Expenses(unannounced) 2,000
8,200
 LEADER’S NAME: BALT, MOHAMMED SAEED A.

MEMBERS RATING: 0-10

(ZERO IS THE LOWEST, 10 IS THE HIGHEST)
BALALA, ANGELA ICAH A 10

BONIAO, LESTER CLARK JEFFERSON V. 10

BORJA JR., DINDO P. 10