The Apkrasher Diaries: Misadventures of a Youth Volunteer

Disclaimer: It's my blog, so it's MY opinion. Need I say more? 

I must admit: I've thought about sex constantly this week. You know, sex in the context of health and rights, humanitarian situations, culture, and all those profound things, you pervs. If you believe this post is about my wild nights of passion with several foreigners during my 4-day stint as an APC volunteer, well, I'm sorry to disappoint you hun. I was as celibate as one can be!

This post is a pandemonium of a write-up regarding my experience as the volunteer of the 7th Asia Pacific Conference of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights.

Expect this to be a rant, a bunch of lists, selfish narratives of my experience, and pictures of a haggard blogger and of cats (because being a member of the Social Media Coverage Committee means you finally submit to your inner desires to coo over cute kitties *meows* =3).

Here ish a picture of a cute sleeping cat from the Internet <3 b="">

By the way, for those interested to know what happened during the sessions, you may want to visit the official #7APCRSHR blog. Clicky clicky. Who says that I can only write about my sex life (or the lack thereof)?

Now that I have shamelessly plug ONE of the fruits of SMCC's fruits of labor, on with the post!

How it started

Back in January 2013, when I was still an officer of the Alliance of Young Nurse Leaders and Advocates, I was invited along with other AYNLAns to be part of the Youth Steering Committee of the 7th Asia Pacific Conference for Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights. Despite being an AYNLAn, it was decided that I represent the Philippine Health Bloggers Society instead. This was a-okay since I was to be a member of the Social Media Coverage Committee, headed by the super awesome, super level-headed dude, Sir Dante Gagelonia of Mulat Pinoy. 

Working with other young SRHR advocates is such an honor and learning from them is such a rare opportunity. Plus it's damn fun. We take the issues of SRHR seriously, but at the same time, "Advocacy ang landi," is definitely central to being a youth SRHR advocate. That simply means we try to make friends (and lovers) while fighting for meaningful youth participation for sexual and reproductive health and rights. 

We are young. hot, and sexy. Photo by the YSC Promotions Committee

Being in the SMC Committee meant that most of the job we'd be doing would be during the conference. We may not be completely toxic pre-7APC, but during the actual event, we could be seen running around like headless chickens covering stuff during our four-day stint as volunteers while some of us were confined in our very own HQ, monitoring tweets, working on Facebook, editing articles and videos, and generally surviving on coffee.

So how was the #7APCRSHR experience as a volunteer? Here you go.

The Good

1. The sessions. The 7th Asia Pacific Conference for Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights gathered the most knowledgeable people from the Asia Pacific to share good practices regarding SRHR. All those who participated in the conference were quite lucky because the insights and information discussed were quite helpful to our advocacy. I cannot wait to take the good practices shared by our neighbors from the Asia Pacific and try them out in the Philippine setting.

2. The work. Oh yes. I am a workaholic. Call it an obsession, a release, a balm for the fact that I am in love with a rock, but there you go. The fact that it is a work I enjoy - writing about the advocacy, MY advocacy, - is a plus.

3. The people. Having the opportunity to meet and work with the Youth Steering Committee was such a privilege. Not only do I got to learn from them, I was also quite inspired by them. I now have the determination to become a much better advocate for SRHR. 

I am quite proud that some of the organizations I am part of are also part of the YSC:
1. Philippine Society of Sexual and Reproductive Health Nurses (PSORHN) which served as medics for the conference. 
2. International Youth Council (IYC)
3. Alliance of Young Health Advocates (AYHA)

It was also quite nice to be able to work with other volunteers and meet new people, particularly the scholars. Despite not having much time with them, I was still rather grateful for the experience. 




Of course, the SMC team was absolutely awesome. Sure, some of us are obsessed with cats, but we worked well together and despite the high pressure, fist fights and attempted murder were avoided. Probably because we're all too busy for it. Everyone kept the atmosphere light, despite the amount of work that needed to be done, despite some of us being sick or on the verge of sickness, despite the fact that we barely sleep. And for this, I love my team.

The SMCC. Harassed never looked this good. Photo by Documentation Committee.

The Challenges

1. The food. Dear god, the first day, we barely had anything to eat. Being in the SMC meant that we're either stuck at HQ or moving around too much to have the time to sit down like the rest and have a decent meal. It was good that this was rectified though and we didn't have to starve during the next few days. Anyway, if taste were to be the basis of evaluation, I'd give it four out of five stars. T'was that good. (I did miss tuyo though).

2. Having no time to breath. Of course, I kept getting invites from some of my other advocate friends in other committees - to hang out, drink, maybe go out with a cute boy or two. Unfortunately being a reporter meant that I had to cover events during the conference then write about it after. Instead of being able to hang out with my buddies, I, along with other reporters, had to lock ourselves in the room instead and write. 

3. Headless chicken mode. As reporters, our job was straight-forward. We were to go to our sessions, take pictures, take down notes, live-tweet, and write articles about it. This would have been easy as pie if we had to cover only one or two sessions per day and most of the time this was the situation. Day 3, however, had us all in near-panic, simply because there were so many stuff to cover and write about. Imagine having 3 events to be in at the same time slot. Imagine those events in different locations, in different bloody floors. Imagine having to run from one location to another and asking an usher where Banquet Hall 3 was and being pointed to three different floors. 

The solution would have been simple. I would have escaped headless chicken mode had I been able to do a Kage Bunshin Jutsu to create clones. Unfortunately, there must have been something wrong with my chakra. Oh well. Back to the ninja academy for me.

The Plain-and-Simple Ugly

1. The move to put a TRO on the conference. Ladies and gentlemen we'd prepped for this conference for two bloody years and they only filed the petition - what a week before? But that's cool. More publicity for us. The rationale for the TRO was the three sessions on abortion that the delegates may opt to join. 

They make it sound like we're strapping women and pulling babies out of their uterus, when in fact the conference also tackles STI and HIV/AIDS, Violence Against Women, RELIGION AND SRHR, and many other topics. To proclaim that it is an "Abortion Conference" is intellectual dishonesty. Basa-basa din ng whole program pag may time.

2. The Anti-RH people's methods of argument. Seriously, I have pro-life friends and they make sense. Why don't you? Did I expect anything else from them? No. But I've always had hope they'd try and sound more intelligent and stop sounding like rabid fundamentalists.

3. The fact that we, the Social Media Coverage Committee, who has been in constant communication with the Youth Steering Committee since and before January 2012, was not even mentioned in the Program. That was a pretty nasty blow, to be honest. I actually have a lot to say about this issue, like how a certain person who quit on the SMC team even before the real work started (or he had any contribution to the cause, for that matter) was mentioned in the program whereas the entire committee was omitted as though we did not exist. But what's done is done. Oh well. 

The End

I don't think it ended, really. Sure, the conference is over, but the relationships formed and the things we learned stay with us for much longer. As an advocate, I take the #7APCRSHR experience with me as a challenge as well as an epiphany. It has given me the push to look beyond what know, integrate the knowledge I have gained in future endeavors, and hopefully be a better spokesperson for SRHR. 

If there is one ultimate thing that Apkrasher thought me is that one should never stop learning. Passion can only take us so far, especially of we stand for the rights of others. It is still better to have a wide knowledge of the situation and an even wider network of friends and collaborators.

#8APCRSHR will be held in Myanmar two years from now. Will I try and go there? Yes. Definitely. This is an experience I would love to repeat.




Trivia: I only found out what "Apkrasher" means recently (we say it with more posh, of course). Essentially, we're just doing the old Bob Ong on "APCRSHR". Told you I went through an epiphany.