Provide primary health care for street children

Childhope Philippines Foundation has conducted its first online staff development activity via Zoom entitled “Mental Health Awareness Webinar” on October 1 - 3, 2020.

The resource speaker was Ms. Bernardo, a very well-known mental health advocate and she tours in different schools in the Philippines to raise awareness about the importance of mental health especially to students.

The goals of the webinar are as follows: to promote mental health awareness and well-being, understanding of anxiety, stress, and depression; increase participants’ comfort with their role in working with people undergoing stress, anxiety, and depression, and to build a support group among the group/workers to advocate Mental Health

Executive Director Dr. Carpio and staff expressed their heartfelt thanks to Ms. Bernardo for accepting the invitation to be the resource speaker in the said webinar.

“This topic is very important and timely, to appropriately address our fears in this pandemic and be able to cope up with the challenges brought about by this outbreak”, said Dr. Carpio.

Ms. Bernardo also shared tips on how to manage stress by having self-awareness, emphasized the importance of a supportive and healthy environment, and how it should foster one’s physical, psychological, and psychosocial needs even during this pandemic.

The webinar was aimed at having an interactive discussion with the participants by discussing each personal takeaways and open up their personal experiences to seek mentoring and guidance.

Thereafter, a breakout session was organized where the staff was given the opportunity to plan and develop the organization’s first basic outline on how they will raise awareness on mental health among the staff and to street children under their wing. The participants also discussed some relevant activities that they may be conducted to promote awareness such as webinars and orientation programs, peer counseling, stress management activities, effective referral system, and fundraising activities.

We commit to caring for our frontliners so we can continue to provide aid to the street children and families. Childhope Philippines puts the health, safety and well-being of its beneficiaries and staff at the forefront of our operations. As we begin to re-open our physical office, we are implementing strict protocols to help keep our staff and the children safe in a Covid19-free environment.

Moreover, each Childhope staff will receive a Covid19 Care kit containing face masks, face shields, soap, alcohol, and vitamins.

If you are encouraged by the work we are doing, please do consider sharing the project with your network, and if your circumstances allow, please consider making an additional gift. We will continue to keep you informed about the work we are doing and the impact your donation is having.

Let’s continue to be a street child’s hope. Keep safe and stay healthy everyone!