We are delighted to share a blog written by student Kaye, from Shenzhen College of International Education, who is part of a team delivering a Global Goals project for the 2021-22 GSL Global Goals Competition.
Their project is among over 957 social action projects currently running as part of the GSL movement and we are excited to be supporting them to design and lead positive social change in their community!
Tiring but so worth it
Project Summary
Situated in one of the most impoverished areas in Asia, the Philippines has most of its population living below the poverty line. Especially vulnerable are the children whom are often either abandoned or neglected and left with no means of protection or care. However, despite these being such a prevalent and ongoing problems, there is so little awareness and acknowledgment of these issues, and even worse, limited action has been taken to resolve these issues.
Hestia’s Hearth emerges to improve this situation, in collaboration with other organizations in raising awareness in supporting existing adoption agencies and adoptee children around the Philippines through creating a reliable platform that provides quality and relevant information about adoption in the country.
Our vision is to become an accessible platform that continuously grows and serves to inform the public about the brunt of the negative consequences children are constantly facing in our vulnerable adoption system.
We remain hopeful that we can amplify every faint voice so that they will eventually be heard by the world.
The Journey
Our campaign can be separated into three months (stages):
January- the month of planning and preparation
February- the month of finalizing
March- the month of action
Our evaluation as of April 2022 is that our month-long awareness campaign has been very successful. We were able to secure partnerships with over 18 organizations, and we have finished launching all our publication materials and educational articles on popular social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram. In just a month, our posts have garnered over 60K views, thousands of likes, and our reach continues to rise even after our campaign has now ended.
We are also currently conducting a fundraiser on our school campus. All proceeds will go towards orphanages, children homes, and other children-centered initiatives of the Philippines.
The biggest challenge was definitely our lack of experience, we were all teenagers and none of us had ever attempted to pull of such an ambitious project before. However, after reaching out and asking much support from those much more knowledgeable and experienced than us, we were able to come up with a concrete and detailed plan– which was one of the most crucial steps that led to our later success.
The Next Chapter
Our initial aim hasn’t changed over the time, it is always about raising adoption awareness and promoting adoption as an option.
Any sort of funding directed at helping alleviate the poor conditions of the disadvantaged children of the Philippines will be highly appreciated- there are a lot of trustworthy adoption agencies and children’s home that needs your help. For more information, you can check out our article, titled “Adoption Awareness & Trustable Agencies.”
We also welcome any small act such as liking and sharing as we believe that any subtle action can lead to an ground-breaking change with our cumulative efforts.
As for more concrete steps, we urge you all to our article titled “What You Can Do” which goes into detail about the actions one can take to help these children.
Nevertheless, Hestia’s Hearth sincerely thanks you for any and all support!
