Change For a Healthier Philippines| Unilab Ideas Positive

A lot of people nowadays claim to care for the environment but how many of us actually go out of our way to protect it? Not so long ago, our very own city of Iligan suffered a great loss from the devastating flash floods that brought us up by typhoon Sendong. Many lives have lost upon the strike of the deadly disease from the urine of rats---leptospirosis! You might have been spared from drowning from the flash floods, but you will not be spared from this disease! Originally, this deadly disease was thought of as being an occupational disease. Occupational in the sense, that only groups such as sewer workers bear the risk of the possibility of getting the infection because of the kind of work that they have. However, climate change as the result of the continuous degradation of the environment due to human abuses has turn this  disease into an outbreak. Over the years, we had experienced full examples to prove that humans are the one’s responsible for the degradation of our environment. The Tsunami in Japan in 2011 and quakes in Negros after the flash floods in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City just recently, are all effects of our bad habit and practices.
When is the time that we can really feel the need to fight for the environment? Do we still need another Sendong for us to act and fight for the enverionment?

It has always been said that the only permanent thing in this world is change. Yes, calamities are part of that change---the constant change in the environment. However, there are types of change, the natural and the induced change which is caused by humans. Therefore, WE ---humans, specifically the youth should rethink our relationship with the environment. The only way we can understand the problems in our environment is to educate ourselves about it and our relation to it. What are the effects of our actions and decisions towards the environment and what do we get out of it in the future. Like for example, the introduction of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. In our elementary we already knew about nutrient cycling that nutrients pass from the environment to the organisms and back to the environment but chemical pesticides and fertilizers disrupts this cycle which will results to imbalance. We do burn our farms wastes instead of allowing them to decompose naturally and again this disrupts the cycle.Why the youth? 

I have so much stress in my life as a youth; therefore, I know that sometimes I felt that my life like any normal youth can seem too busy to worry about the environment. It should be the youth! Certainly, because they have brilliant ideas. Maybe because this is the stage where one individual search for sense of social purpose, it is a time for them to decide about future life. It is the time to choose or decide which way to go for life. This is the moment where one should ponder the kind of life one should want to live with. Further, teenagers have often very receptive brain, so they can learn faster and better than others. This is the stage where they spend much time on discovering and learning skills and develop them in preparation for their adulthood. Therefore, this is the best time for the youth to learn the ideas about caring for the environment.

I have high hopes for the Filipino youth to come up with realistic and enduring solutions that could be the answer of the pressing concerns in our environment. The youth's exceptional brilliance together with Unilab Ideas Positive which is a social marketing clinic and at the same time a competition provides a venue for college students to share their innovative and sustainable ideas would be a perfect combination. Unilab Ideas Positive helps the youth in turning their ideas into concrete health and wellness programs for their communities by indulging the youth participants with: 1. A 3-day social marketing booth camp, where they can learn and understand social marketing approaches from a pool of experts using current and relevant social marketing practices and case studies 2. A seed money so they can implement their social marketing programs with six moths.

How to Join?

One can join by forming a group of five (5) members. The groups composition can be interdisciplinary, but all members must be currently enrolled and comes from the same  university or college in the Philippines. 

Prizes at Stake


Unilab Ideas Positive will choose  fifteen (15) student groups to implement their social marketing plans. The regions (Metro Manila, South Luzon, North Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao) will be represented by three (3) groups only, who will each receive a cash of P100,000 to roll out their projects for six (6) months from August 2012 to January 2013.
By February 2013, the fifteen (15) teams will be presenting the results of their projects. Three (3) teams will be awarded as the Unilab Ideas Positive 2012 winners.
A Grand Prize winner will be selected to receive:

1. Unilab Ideas Positve Winner's Trophy for their school.
2. P50,000 cash prize for the group members
3. P10,000 honorarium for the group mentor/faculty coach
4. A social marketing training program of the team's choice worth P20,000

The two (2) Runners-Up will also receive the following:

1. Unilab Ideas Positve Winner's Trophy for their respective schools
2. P30,000 cash prize for the group members
3. P5,000 honorarium for the group mentor/faculty coach

Each members of the finalists groups will also receive an Ideas Positive Medal and a special Unilab gift packs.
Interested college students can join by teaming up and registering at www.unilabideaspositive.com. Deadline for submission of entries is on April 16.
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