Audrey Espinosa Codera Philippine Youth Employment Network (PYEN) Philippines audrey.codera@gmail.com

Audrey Codera is the Executive Director of Philippine Youth Employment Network (PYEN) and Country Coordinator of YES-Philippines. The Philippine Youth Employment Network (PYEN) is a non-stock, non-profit youth-led multi-stakeholder network of community-based youth groups supported by major development partners composed of international, national and local organisations, coming from the government, non-government and private sectors aimed at bringing employment and employability to the youth in the grassroots. Audrey has done Master’s in Political Economy – International Relations and Development from University of Asia and the Pacific. She has plan to continue her work in order to build the capacity of the youth in the grassroots in pursuing employment or entrepreneurship.

What are the key activities of YES Campaign and how are you associated with this organisation?
The YES Campaign was launched in response to the enormous challenge of youth unemployment facing most countries and affecting millions of young people around the world.

The YES Country Networks bring youth organisations together with governments, NGOs, the private sector, and academic and training institutions to develop programmes and policies to provide youth with opportunities for creating livelihoods. The YES Campaign has successfully created a platform for young people to contribute to their countries and communities with a newfound hope, vision and purpose. We know that skilled and empowered youth will to become productive, citizens in a challenging and evolving globalised world.

Aside form the Youth Employment Summit, which happens every two years, the YES Campaign assists its Youth Country Networks by providing online tools that are helpful for capacity-building. The strong relationship that YES has with its partners also assists its YCN in the advocacy of the importance of Youth Employment issues.

The Philippine Youth Employment Network is the legal name of YES-Philippines. It is the Youth Country Network of the YES Campaign in the Philippines and I function as YES-Philippines Country Coordinator.

Which focus of your organisational activities seem to be most interesting to you?
The whole concept of the Community-based Youth Entrepreneurship Programme (CYEP) is my main focus right now. Whereas there are still a lot to be done for the youth in terms of youth employment, I think the most important is to first give the youth its livelihood. Thus, CYEP was born. All other things that comes with it is a by product of the most important issue-poverty alleviation combined with security issues.

My work in PYEN enables me to pursue the YES Campaign according to the needs of the youth in the Philippines. I form part of the consultative groups on youth employment issue. At the same time, I am very much in touch with youth in the grassroots thus enabling me to relate first hand what the youth are experiencing and what they need.

Now, I don’t propose that I know them thoroughly or that I know everything they need. By virtue of being in the same environment they are during the BEDC Training sessions we have and the follow up activities, they are able to tell me and the rest of the youth volunteers what they want to do with their lives, what motivates them to want to put up their small businesses and what their main obstacles are. I call it globalisation. You look at the problem form the global perspective, but solve it utilising the inherent resources and qualities the locality has. I get to have the global perspective of the issue, the possible solutions considering the information I am able to obtain locally and bring about the solution where it’s needed and share it with the international community. If that isn’t interesting, I don’t know what is.

Can you share with the readers the main factors behind your recent success?
I’d like to think of success as a matter of perspective – not because there are no standards to follow nor because those standards are incorrect. It’s a matter of perspective because you have to consider the impact of the project or programme on a larger scale and given a timeframe. PYEN has been conceived in 2002. It was registered in the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2003. We were able to build our partners - the government, private sector and other NGOs. We are even considered experts on youth employment issues. Through CYEP, we were able to gain more youth volunteers. In a span of a few years, this is quite successful.

But then again, I don’t want to focus on just what we have done on a policy and youth volunteerism level. The main idea is to have young entrepreneurs in the grassroots. And I must say, although we have given the youth the necessary skills to start their business enterprises, very few have done so not because of anything else, but because the prospect that the youth can be trusted with money and will not just incur debts is still considered new or worst, people don’t even consider it at all. We have a lot of eager young people wanting desperately to free themselves from poverty and help their families. Sadly, we also have MFIs unwilling to trust these young people despite government policy to support the youth. We, therefore, have to look for funding from other institutions. However, most international institutions fund conferences and not community-based projects – conferences that, although helpful in information dissemination, are not targeted at providing solutions to the problem. And I really believe it’s a matter of trust. The project, and any project run by young people for that matter, will only be successful once the international and national communities- public, private and civil society accepts the fact that the youth can be trusted.

As a young member of this society, which activities do you think to be prioritised more for the development of the society?
Solutions to problems vary depending on the urgency of the problem. Any activity or project that is not in line with solving the most urgent of problems is futile and, to be very blunt about it, will never work.

Say you have people dying of hunger in African continent. You can’t teach them how to make business plans. The first thing you need to do is feed them. If you have people in Cambodia dying of landmines, again you can’t solve the problem by a project teaching them about HIV/AIDS.

As much as I would like to say that projects on youth employment and entrepreneurship should be prioritised, that is just not what everyone in the world needs, which I think, again, if what most international organisations are having difficulty with. They’re trying to solve world problems by thinking of general solutions, which in the end does not nip the problem in the bud.

This is also what’s so good about the YES Campaign. The overall theme is youth employment. Then we have the 6Es plus education as a framework. The individual projects and actions in each country are decided upon by the YCN in that country who knows the problem, its history and possible solutions while taking into account the cultural differences. From this, the YCNs crafts the action plan or projects.

So what activities should be given priority? I think the more appropriate question would be: what is the most urgent problem in your society and how do you intend to solve it? If you get the right answer to the first idea, the next one should be easier to handle.

What do you think about the prospect of ICT towards the development of youth and the prospect of youth in ICT way?
ICT is boundless. That’s a fact. I think everyone knows that the younger generations know more about ICT than the older ones. ICT is a powerful tool if used for the development of the youth. New technologies always attract young people. Due to its borderless nature, ICT is a key to information dissemination among the youth. You have e-Groups, e-Newsletters, e-Volunteers and others other form of communications where young people who are willing to help others are accepted without judgment and prejudice.

And as I mentioned, younger generations are attracted to any form of technology. They also have the capacity to learn how to use the most recent technology. So, again, if used for the right reasons, the youth can benefit greatly by utilising ICT in they endeavours.

How can you help the young generation to get rid off the vicious cycle of ‘digital divide’ in the developing nations?
I think the first thing we need to do is make the gadgets available to the youth. People fear what they do not know. And people can’t know what they cannot touch, hear, see, feel or think of. We can only do away with the digital divide if the youth have access to ICT. Without this, I have to say that I cannot help other young people. How would they know that I even exist? Give the youth a computer. Give them a phone. Give them Internet connection. I’m pretty sure anyone will be able to solve the problem of digital divide.

If we had computers and Internet connection to use whenever we conduct our CYEP and if the trainees do not need to write their business plans by hand including financial reports, I’m pretty sure the trainings will go much faster and the youth would learn more.

As it is, the only thing I can do right now is give more information to other young people about what we’re doing in PYEN through SMS messages, e-mails, e-Groups, etc. In a way this can be one factor to bridge the ‘digital divide’. But then again, by having e-Groups, cell phones and e-mails, these youth volunteers and institutions are actually experiencing the digital divide. Again, I must go to the root of the problem – provide the youth with ICT at their disposal, then you and I can bridge the digital divide.

In what way you would like to utilise your enthusiasm and activities further, after getting inspiration from this Youth Award?
I’m crafting a proposal right now still utilising ICT as a major component of the project. I plan to submit it for GKP’s YSEI so I’m not sure if I should talk about it right now. It has something to do with funding for youth and it has already started with very little funds since I was only able to convince friends and family members of its sustainability.

If there’s one very hard lesson I have learnt, it is very difficult to find international organisations willing to support grassroots projects. And due to the urgency of the situation, I have managed to get private individuals to invest and trust the youth. I hope that with or without grants, this project I’m working on will reach more people.

Can you please convey your message to our young generation to make our society a better one?
First, try hard not to give the more mature generations of this world more reason not to trust us. Second, and more seriously, pursue your dreams. Make three-year plans. During the first year, work hard at achieving it. The second year, work hard at maintaining it and doing well in it. During the third year, finish what you can, discard those you haven’t started and make a new three-year plan. If you didn’t work on something you wanted to pursue within three years, it means you never wanted it in the first place. So make new ones. Third, stay out of drugs, anything that will unnecessarily harm you. Life is short, enjoy it. And fourth, every second is a second of happiness and fulfillment. So do what makes you happy (and I’m not talking about superficial happiness) and you’ll see. You’ll find yourself helping others. It’s human nature and you’ll feel a different kind of fulfillment doing just that.<