The Institution

For my Special Project, I examined the existing institutions in my community with which I can offer my service. I contacted the chairperson of the Sangguniang Kabataan council in our area, Barangay Sapangbato in Angeles City, Pampanga, to propose a partnership for my SP. Immediately after, we set a date for the signing of the consent form (see Appendix A) and the project log (see Appendix B). The SK council consists of 10 members including their secretary and treasurer. They were elected into their positions from the previous 2022 local elections. 

Out of all the institutions in our community, I chose the SK council to work with due to the educational initiatives they conduct for youth development. One of their notable projects is the printing hub. After they were officially sworn into office, they first set their eyes on providing low-income students with the means to copy and print their assignments and projects through the SK's printing hub. Printing, especially colored pictures, can be pricey in our location and this project helps ease the financial burdens of students in our community. The printing hub is still functioning today.

Their office is located inside the barangay hall, where they work together with the barangay officials. However, their meetings take place in the conference room. Despite the availability of equipment for more efficient meeting processes like the television monitor to project figures better, the council often uses printouts and phones for convenience. On the other hand, most of their training and seminars as SK council members take place in other venues outside Brgy. Sapangbato. Today, they are continuing to serve the community with their various programs in education (learning materials access and ALS), health, and sports that are planned in their annual program.

Issues and Needs

The SK chairperson and I scheduled an interview to talk about the SK council and the issues they are facing. For this, I prepared a set of questions (see Appendix C) beforehand to structure our conversation and also served as my guide in communicating with the interviewee. I inquired about the resources they have at their disposal which help them plan and conduct activities. Most of their resources come from manpower as the council has its official council members and youth purok leaders. The latter assists in disseminating information about youth-related projects within the barangay. However, despite their number, the council still needs help with management.

I asked about the problems they are facing and the SK chairperson listed the two most important ones. First, project management skills need to be improved among the council members. Deadlines are not often met and they struggle with task division. Another issue is the lackluster participation of the barangay’s youth in the programs made for them by the SK. According to the chairperson, it is difficult to motivate youths to engage in community activities especially if there are no rewards in exchange.

Furthermore, I asked about the countermeasures they’ve taken to alleviate the said problems. For the first issue,  the chairperson takes on more workload to make up for the deadlines and task division challenges. I asked why this issue persisted and was told that it was largely due to the tight schedule of the members. All of the SK kagawads are currently enrolled in school which adds to their responsibilities. Meanwhile, they use reward systems to address the issue of weak participation from youths in youth-centered programs. To encourage them to participate, the barangay’s SK council implements raffle events. However, even with this solution and the encouragement of youth purok leaders to make them attend, participation is still low. 

Other factors that contribute to these problems are the negative connotations of SK’s existence itself. The chairperson shared that people‘s predominant view of them is always associated with basketball league games. People always expected them to conduct such activities which affects the engagement of their more youth-relevant projects. Other people also regard the council not as an official and legitimate body in the community but as kids they can dictate what to do. This is also related to the way they often get bypassed by other barangay officials i.e., purok leaders in some instances. 

Out of the two issues that the chairperson listed, she ranked project management as the most pressing issue— which I will be tackling in this project. We came to the agreement that an instructional design project is the best way to address the council's low project management skills. The project will be designed according to the needs and characteristics of my target learners, and the expected learning outcomes of this project will be designed to increase project management skills among the SK council.