Last June 29-30, 2012, an ACCESS-PYLP Aluma, Criseline T. Barredo from the Ateneo de Zamboanga University spearheaded the “PENMANSHIP: Peace Environment Management for Stewardship” peace and journalism workshop followed by a coastal cleanup in partnership with the AdZU Communication Department, the Youth Solidarity for Peace (YSP) and Peace Advocates Zamboanga (PAZ) headed by Mr Aldrin B. Abdurahim, Council of Barangay Maasin, Western Mindanao Command (WesMinCom), American Field Service (AFS), Philippine Youth Leadership Program (PYLP) Alumni, and the Department of Education (DepEd).
In lieu with the continuous project implementations of the Philippine Youth Leadership Program (PYLP) batch 9 which had started last May, Criseline T. Barredo of the Ateneo de Zamboanga University spearheaded her project “PENMANSHIP: Peace Environment Management for Stewardship” last June 29-30 2012. The said project was a peace and environmental journalism workshop and a coastal cleanup.
The peace and environmental workshop was held in the ADZU Communication Department’s MassComm RTV Complex of the Ateneo de Zamboanga University bringing up 45 student writers and school paper advisers from ten different national high schools of Zamboanga.
The workshop aims to teach the writers about effective environmental journalism skills to serve as tools in advocating peace and preserving the environment. Furthermore, it aims to deepen their understanding on peace and development. The participants were asked to do articles about their ideal communities and were later tasked to issue their articles in local publications. Speakers who shared insights during the workshop were Mr. Christian Olasiman and Ryan Victor Miranda from the Communications Department of Ateneo with them were Robert Basco, Ms Arweda Jalilul and Mr Albert Arcilla from Peace Advocates Zamboanga and Peaceworks Publications. Before ending the workshop, the participants were toured to the Communications Department and were given the chance to use the equipments provided.
On the following day, warmly welcomed by the Barangay Council of Maasin headed by Hon. Misael Bernardo, the peace volunteers and PENMANSHIP participants were brought to the Caragasan Beach for a coastal cleanup. The coastal cleanup is a way of exposing the student writers to the realities that we are facing nowadays, and to teach them how to raise social awareness concerning the pressing issues of peace and environment around the community with their journalistic efforts.
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By Criseline T. Barredo
