Andam Eba 1.0

As the quarantine continues, underlying and unseen problems threaten the welfare of the women here in the Philippines. Increased number of unintended teenage pregnancies, unreported cases of gender-related violence among women and children, heightened rates of mental health-related concerns/disorders, and financial adversities are just a few of the problems faced by an “Eba” as she also faces the battle against COVID-19. 

 The City of Cagayan de Oro which is currently a city in bloom, blossom, and boom with its economic and civic progress is not exempted from the mentioned dilemmas brought by the quarantine and the pandemic. Hence, during the pre-implementation stage of this program and on our 3-month donation drive have observed that the said problems are already visible and could aggravate due to the quarantine measures. Our team in Andam Higala believes from day 1 that an empowered and prepared “higala” or kagay-anon individual comes from empowered and prepared women and children. We also believe in the power of “bayanihan” as an effective tool in aiding the underlying issues during this time of pandemic. 

ANDAM EBA is a webinar that aims to empower teenage moms in these times of pandemic by educating and simplifying the available resources for women to aid arising problems toward their health and security which needs to be addressed immediately and is ideal in our current situation. This webinar primarily focuses on our city’s teenage moms aged 10-19 years old and will be conducted on August 26-27, 2020 which is timely for the city’s celebration of Higalaay Festival and could also be our way of showing support to our higalas in the Women Sector. Since, Modified General Community Quarantine and Inter-agency Task Force guidelines are still being implemented in the city, our 2-day webinar would be thru a Facebook Live every 1:30-3:00 pm on August 26 and 27 and would be showed not only on Andam Higala’s Facebook Page but also on our partnered television program. However, we still need a lot of help as we are still new to creating networks to concerned government agencies and running events for the community.