This love month, the Global Peace Foundation Philippines (GPF Ph) and Consuelo Zobel Alger Foundation (CF) aired the 4th Episode of Safe Talks: Takes and Tales by the Youth last February 19, 4 pm live via Zoom and Facebook with the theme “Creating Safe Spaces With Love.”
The series was hosted by four Safe Space Heroes— Kier Adventurado of Happy Hearts Initiative, Joshua G. Cote of The Puso Movement, Sarah Jane Fabito of Witech Batangas, and Qjiel Mariano of Ladders to Literacy.
Before the event, GPF and CF posted a call for Youth who want to participate in the live discussion. They gathered 2 participants who wished to join the safe space heroes and sent an introduction with a question via a 90-second video to the series’ secretariat.
The Safe Space heroes pointed out the importance of showing love and affection, not just to someone you are in a romantic relationship with. As people, we can also love ourselves, our families, and friends, so “Valentine’s Day” is not just a celebration for couples but showing love and affection in general. With Safe Space Heroes’ wits and wisdom, we can emphasize expressing one’s feelings more comfortably and change perspectives regarding our emotions.
We can show this Love by becoming a safe space for your friends, especially now that we are in a very stressful situation (pandemic). We should not forget to message our family and friends to check up on them and how they cope in this situation.
After the hosts’ discussion, they played the introduction and question video of the two selected Youth to join in the program: Host of SDG Tambayan Ranze Calderon and Philippine Daily Inquirer contributor Angeline Faustino.
“Love should prevail in all situations. Love provokes change and accepts people for them.” There are all kinds of Love but let us practice those that can promote peace, unity, and happiness for all people. We should continue to advocate for safe space in families, communities, online, and in conversations. Allowing inclusivity to be practiced everywhere is also an excellent way to construct safe spaces in little corners.
Aira Isabel Canlas, student leader from La Union shared in our post online feedback from, “When the guests and hosts started talking about love, especially Angeline’s question, I relate to her sentiments about love, and I am also curious about what love is. I also liked how the hosts answer the questions based on their life experiences, making the topic more relatable.”
“I learned in this episode the value of empathy and compassion now more than ever during these pressing times we face. I realized that we have to offer our presence and be that source of motivation for each other, uplifting each other morale in this global health crisis.” Shared by Victor Adrian Sari, student from Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
Safe Talks: Tales and Takes by the Youth is a series of conversations led by the Youth discussing critical social concerns and challenges facing the world today. These episodes will be held by young people who will be sharing their own stories and experiences pertinent to the episode’s topic (tales) and their thoughts, opinions, suggestions on what should take action and how to encourage everyone to be part of the solution (takes). And with proper communication partaking in the Youth, we can achieve stronger solidarity from our future leaders.
The fourth episode of Safe Talks was able to reach one thousand two hundred eighty-four (1,440) people (both from Facebook and Zoom) from thirty-five (35) Philippine schools and fifteen (15) youth organizations. From the 240 Zoom attendees, 70% are youth, 20% are educators, 7% are NGO workers, and 2% are GO workers. The post-evaluation shows that 95.29% were satisfied with the content of the episode, 95.58% believe that the subject matter was presented effectively, 95.58% believe that the hosts are knowledgeable, 96.17% plan to apply what they learned from the webinar in a real-life setting, 96.17% shared that they will recommend the webinar to their friends and colleagues and 95.88% expressed that they will ‘definitely’ join the next webinar.