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By Mikhaela Dimpas, IDEALS<\/p>\n
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Crystal Joy, 18, used to be a very shy girl who only stayed at home. She is the youngest of three children. When her parents separated, she and her siblings were forced to brave life alone.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The rift within her family caused them more financial burden and meant that she couldn\u2019t continue her studies anymore. Their mother was already out of the picture, Crystal\u2019s siblings have gotten married and built their own families, and it left her no choice but to find someone to be with instead. Crystal got married at the tender age of 17.<\/span><\/p>\n She believed that the challenges she faces and the new expectations as a wife cannot and should not hinder her development as a youth. When Crystal heard that there was a training specifically for out-of-school youth, she didn\u2019t falter and immediately confirmed her attendance. Along with 24 other OSY in the different barangays in Tamontaka, they joined the Sulong, Kabataan: Formators\u2019 Training under Project ABOVE.<\/span><\/p>\n The 2-day training opened her eyes to other possibilities. \u201cI realized that I can do so much more for myself, my family, and my fellow out-of-school youth,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n The training conducted sessions on leadership, civic engagement, and media literacy. Hands-on and piloting sessions on media production and community service were also done. Crystal joined the media production session.<\/span><\/p>\n During the session, she was taught how to operate a camera and how to produce a multimedia talkshow. It was something foreign for her as she didn\u2019t have any opportunity before to speak in front of her peers, let alone produce a talkshow that thousands of people can watch.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This was just a start for Crystal. She started discovering hidden talents within herself. Little by little, she started practicing and opening herself to other people. During the Youth Formation Session in Tamontaka 2, Crystal shared a speech she wrote on the importance of trusting ourselves and not be afraid to try new things. 30 of her fellow ka-<\/span>barangay<\/i> OSY\u00a0 listened to her pour her heart out.<\/span><\/p>\n Then Crystal started exploring more things such as acting and radio guestings.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI am still nervous everytime I do activities like that, but nothing will happen if we let fear and doubts take over,\u201d she said. Crystal was one of the actresses and local talents that IDEALS tapped for its general education plug on civil registration.<\/span><\/p>\n These videos were shown in a number of airports in Mindanao, uploaded via Facebook, and sent to the European Union. From the 30 peers who listened to her voice, Crystal can now be watched and heard by hundreds and thousands of people all over the world.<\/span><\/p>\n Crystal still dreams of studying but times, according to her, are quite difficult. She wants to study Hotel and Restaurant Management and be able to work in the industry. Right now, she\u2019s trying to find ways to enroll in the Alternative Learning System.<\/span><\/p>\n Even if she doesn\u2019t have the means to go back to school yet, she knows that she can still contribute a lot to her community.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI want to show the world that just because you\u2019re not in school, doesn\u2019t mean that you can\u2019t do good things for your community. We are not useless. As OSY, we can still learn a lot from other people and we can do a lot to contribute to our barangay,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Mikhaela Dimpas, IDEALSCrystal Joy, 18, used to be a very shy girl who only stayed at home. She is the youngest of three children. When her parents separated, she and her siblings were forced to brave life alone.\u00a0 The rift within her family caused them more financial burden and meant that she couldn\u2019t continue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":3491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-impact-stories","category-pc4d"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideals.org.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideals.org.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideals.org.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideals.org.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideals.org.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ideals.org.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideals.org.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideals.org.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideals.org.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideals.org.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}