Teams transform communities with positive ideas

MANILA, Philippines - A dozen youth teams from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao have qualified to bring their community-changing ideas to positive realities in this year’s national run of Unilab Ideas Positive. Now on its third year, Unilab Ideas Positive serves as a venue to enable the Filipino youth to improve the health and wellness of their communities with their positive and sustainable ideas.

Each winning team will be given P100,000 seed money to implement their social marketing plans in their chosen communities for the next six months.

But before the project implementation, all 12 youth teams will be flown in to Manila to undergo a 3-day social marketing boot camp on June 21-23 at the Unilab Bayanihan Center in Mandaluyong. The students will learn social marketing approaches through workshops and case studies from a roster of subject matter experts.

The boot camp also involves a one-day immersion at Gawad Kalinga’s Enchanted Farm, a social innovation village in Bulacan.

Among the 12 finalists, seven teams come from the Luzon Region, four from the Visayas and one from Mindanao. Projects range from innovative programs to address malnutrition to saving river systems and providing access to potable and safe water resources.      

“We are impressed by the quality of ideas presented by the youth and proud of how these teams have embodied the bayanihan spirit in involving the right stakeholders and institutions within their campaigns,” shared Unilab Ideas Positive program lead Barry Barrientos.

From the 12, the five most successful teams in project implementation will advance to the finals for a chance to become the Unilab Ideas Positive 2012 grand winner.