Read, Surf and Text for your parents!

I am currently leading a campaign in two secondary schools in Aurora—Bayanihan National High School and Ma Aurora National High School. It’s called “Sagot ko ang magulang ko!: Isang kampanya upang hikayatin ang mga kabataang maging infomediary (I will help my parents!: A campaign to mobilise the youth to become infomediaries”).

The idea is plain and simple: for young individuals to search for information for their farmer-parents. In the Philippines, information on modern rice farming is no longer an issue; access to these information is. PhilRice, in collaboration with other agencies, has developed an information portal called the Pinoy Rice Knowledge Bank. The website contains basically everything one has to know about rice farming in the Philippines. PRKB contains handouts, technology videos, powerpoint presentations—we’ve got them all. Additionally, PhilRice also maintains the PhilRice Text Center, which answers all queries on rice production. In recent years, the Text Center has gained momentum. Our text center agents find it hard to stand as the inbox is always full—but, again, we need to do more to make sure we reach the marginalised farmers.

So why the youth?

When we did the “Assessment of e-readiness of the five top rice-producing provinces of the Philippines” in 2009, the farmers told us they wanted their children to teach them how to use the computer. I picked up from that finding and continued on with that line of inquiry for my master’s thesis. I then worked on how to mobilise the youth to become infomediaries for their farmer-parents. I analysed their activity patterns, which reinforced our findings in 2009.

The young individuals of Aurora and Albay who participated in my thesis all frequented computer shops on a regular basis. They went there to log on Facebook, watch videos in YouTube, some even watched pornographic movies. I got even more interested when I observed this phenomenon in Aurora. Some students from Bayanihan National High School frequented the computer shops in the town center even as they had to spend USD 1.75. That was a bit hard to reconcile with the fact that most Filipinos live on less than USD 1.35 daily according to a 2008 data by ADB. Additionally, which did not surprise me at all, was their texting behaviour. On average, they sent more than 200 text messages daily.

Having said that, many realisations surfaced.  First, the access issue will be solved. Whilst it is true that the young individuals do not have computers in their respective households, they make up for it by frequenting computer shops on a daily or weekly basis. Second, the computer anxiety (the feeling of discomfort when infront of the computer) being experienced by most farmers will also be addressed. There is wide recognition in the information and communications technology for development (ICT4D) discipline of the impressive ability of the young individuals to cope with new technology (see Thurlow and McKay 2009). Third, the language issue owing to the fact that most texts in the Internet are in English will likewise be addressed. Literacy rates of young Filipinos are among the highest in the developing world.   

There were a lot of apprehensions before as how could children who did not have any experience doing farmwork (not true in Aurora) serve as info seekers for their parents? We try to address this concern by adding the rice garden component, which is being maintained by the students. The rice garden component will give them extra confidence in discussing rice farming issues with their parents.

Right now, the campaign has already taken off. I got goosebumps when we had the Pinoy Rice Knowledge Bank tryouts. What we did was we gave them different questions, more like those that are likely to be asked by their parents, and they searched for answers using the offline (CD) version of the PRKB. They were very fast and accurate! Very impressive, indeed! The thing is they don’t have to be farmers themselves—not now that they are still in school. BUT, they can, by all means, search for rice farming information for their parents.

Last May, we’ve got good coverage when an article about the campaign appeared in Yahoo News. Many expressed interest to replicate the campaign or at least to be a part of it. We welcome similar suggestions. So if you want to replicate this campaign in your area, do contact me. I will write more about this campaign in the coming weeks! I’ll keep you posted.