Invest in Muslim youth volunteering for peace

Dear Friends and Supporters,

With your help, KI has been able to recruit and train a new batch of 7 volunteers. The six women and one man received their training during last February. Then in early march, they travelled to the Surigao City in Eastern Mindanao, a 12 hour road trip. Christian dominated Surigao was hit by a 6.7 magnitude earthquake on February 10 this year that caused damage to the communities both physically and emotionally, KI joined with other volunteers from different organizations of Mindanao Emergency Response Network (MERN) to provide psychosocial aid to those communities,especially the children, affected in the area. This intervention was the final part of the volunteer's training program and I would like to share with you some of their experiences.

"We prioritized more on children who experienced the earthquake. The sessions were conducted in schools in different places in Surigao. We, the trainees were nervous and excited at first because it is our first time to handle these kinds of tasks which is an emergency response. We were given several orientations and briefing before coming to the area so that we know how to do it properly. The conducting of sessions is by pair, so from KI we are divided into 4 teams. In the first sessions, we encountered young children ages 7-12. Our self introduction to them was a bit difficult at first because of the language barrier. The people in Surigao speak Cebuano differently than what we used to hear in Iligan City. These children also speak the native Surigaonon dialect and we really find it difficult to understand them because they kept on talking to us in their dialect despite asking them to use Filipino instead. But along the way, we were able to adjust to them and learnt few words from their dialect. Their cheerful faces say as though they didn't experience a disaster. But when we asked them what they felt during the earthquake, they were all having the same answer that we are all very scared. Some children told us that they thought it’s the end of the world because the earthquake is not stopping and they’ve witnessed their family members being hurt during the tragedy."

This is just a brief excerpt of their experience. Thanks to your support, you are not only helping to empower young people, you are also enabling them to help those from other communities in Mindanao.

Thank you

Mariam