Blog Entry at start of project

I haven’t been able to successfully post this until now but it is a section of my journal which I wrote during my stop-over in Singapore on the way to Cebu.

The most important factor that I recognise in my role as a researcher is about making connections in the local context with the target group, their families, local Government, NGO’s, PO’s and other organisations. The local context will be my focus and establishing rapport with the people to enable a relationship where I can gain a true sense and understanding of what they view as their priority needs, their barriers and the challenges they have experienced in the past. I am however unsure regarding the degree of rapport building which can be established with perhaps one off or only a handful of meetings with the same individuals, groups and organisations within the community. In addition to this and given the limited timeframes I envisage it may be difficult to explore and break through the superficial layers to gain a real sense of what is happening on the ground and the challenges faced by youth. Based on past experience, my expectation is that it will be difficult to elicit information and truly understand the context and associated underlying issues and barriers which can be complicated by a number of factors which could be for example political and/or socially related. In saying this, any level of information gathered will assist in identifying further areas of research needed to facilitate program planning and design of future livelihood projects for disadvantaged youth. I am looking forward to Tagbilaran and learning about the Provincial context, however I am more eager to get to Candabong to speak to the locals and disadvantaged youth to explore and understand their situation further. Paul mentioned there have been several youth that have approached him for jobs that are qualified to do but do not have any work experience or history relating to the specialty and cannot find a job in their community. It seems there is motivation from some youth to continue education and find work however following the literature review, I am also expecting the opposite attitude with aimlessness and associated behaviours including laziness due to minimal hope and local opportunities.

Blog Entry – midway

I have been surprised at the openness and willingness of the people which has made it possible to gather more in depth information than I had initially thought possible. The adults in particular are less hesitant or shy than what I had imagined sharing their opinions, ideas, past experiences and challenges to date, and openly expressing the barriers they face of which many report limited support and funds from their LGU due to corruption or political alignment. For example, one PO stated that if a community did not support and provide their vote to the Mayor during the election period, it would be highly unlikely for their community to receive any support or funding with those communities or locals that voted in favour being looked after first. Consequently there are many communities that have minimal confidence in their LGU to support and provide local opportunities to their communities that seek assistance and support at a Provincial or National Government level. In addition to this many people still suspect corruption continues at Provincial and LGU level with minimal funding making it to the Barangay level. Through observation, there is a sense of helplessness within many of the communities which has led to the mindset that in order for youth to access opportunities for income generation to support their family, they must migrate to larger cities where wages are higher and opportunities more prevalent. In many cases, there has not been an emphasis to complete high school or further study for this reason. Although I was aware of the migration of youth through my project proposal literature review, I did not realise just how strong and ingrained this mindset is and hadn’t considered how this may effect youth engagement in future Leaders for Change projects. I think it will be a real challenge to shift this mindset of youth and their families to believe there are local livelihood opportunities within their community and to actively participate in Leaders for change projects. In saying this, given time and the right mix of youth and support from role models and mentors I think many of the engagement issues can be minimised.