BSM Digital Literacy Program

98% of establishments in the Philippines require competent digital skills for employment. GBV Filipino youth survivors (ages 13-18 years old), coming from difficult, traumatic and low-income families, have limited to no access to digital skills. Although they are under the care of a foundation or an institution, the expensive internet connection and gadgets limit their learning opportunity to discover their digital skills. As they turn 18, they start reintegrating into society, transitioning to living independently; a huge important step is finding decent work. Due to lack or deficiency of digital skills, obtaining gainful employment is a challenge. Therefore, we have created the BSM Digital Literacy Program to provide them an opportunity to discover their digital skill set which is beneficial for employment. The Program is also offering job application mentorship, internship opportunities and scholarship grants (diploma) to excelling students at a recognized technological institute in the Philippines. 

In 2020, there are over 2.5million gender-based violence survivors in the Philippines and over 70% of the victims have limited educational attainments, and more than 20% of those have no education at all. This issue already makes employment for GBV survivors a challenge, and digital competency becoming a requirement for gainful employment presents an even larger-scale crisis. It is now more relevant and important to provide GBV survivors the opportunity to learn and develop digital skills for their professional development as part of reintegration into society. To add, GBV survivors (ages 13-18 years old) in the Philippines usually come from low-income families (earning USD100/month) so they are commonly taken under a care of a foundation. Although that is the case, the expensive costs of a stable internet connection and/or gadgets particularly, laptop units, limit them from freely discovering their digital skills. Having competent digital skills is a job application privilege and everyone must have equal access to learn and utilize it. 

BSM Digital Literacy Program is a blended learning workshop with modules customized for GBV survivors in the Philippines. It aims to teach digital citizenship and digital skills such as graphic design and professional etiquettes such as creating digital CV's, doing online and offline job interviews, and making emails - needed for their career developments. Through our classes, students will be able to engage directly with the teachers about any concern they may have, or any skill that they would like to learn. The Program is held annually as a 14-day workshop in a chosen community / organization, and a year-round of mentorship for job applications. It will also provide grants to excelling students to finish a diploma in the country's recognized technological institutes. 

Our main target is the GBV survivors in the Philippines, and as a pilot project, our target community is a foundation taking care of survivors ranging from ages 13-18 years old. While survivors are able to obtain basic education by the foundation taking care of them, their digital literacy is more often than not, incompetent. Due to limited access to the internet and gadgets mainly because of expensive costs, they are not able to learn digital skills beneficial for gainful employment. 

Employment is a very important part of reintegration into society as they transition to living independently. In addition to that, most of them are either abandoned by their families or coming from low-income households hence their life security relies heavily on their employment. Therefore, their digital skills would be a huge leverage when applying for a job. The Program will deliver them the opportunity to build and develop their own set of digital skills through personalized modules based on their traumatic backgrounds, and teach them how to utilize those skills for their career development through an all-year round mentorship program, and internship program together with the support of different organizations who pledged to accept internship applications from the students of the program. 

The Program commits to ensure a healthy and high-quality learning environment therefore providing stable internet connection and enough laptop units; and offering grants to excelling students to pursue a certified diploma in digital technology at a recognized institute in the Philippines.

Our problem, solution and target population are aligned with the challenge. Our target population, the GBV survivors are members of the most vulnerable part of the society, and the problem is their incompetence in digital literacy for professional development - which could only be resolved through the BSM Digital Literacy Program that commits to providing learning opportunities, scholarship grants and job application mentorships as part of the societal reintegration of our students. 

We have partnered with the Virlanie Foundation in Manila, Philippines as our main community for the BSM Digital Literacy Program, they are currently housing around 30 Filipino youth from ages 13-18 years old who are mostly victims of various forms of gender-based violence such as rape, domestic violence, rape, abandonment, neglect, sexual exploitation, and human/child trafficking. 

Approaching the issue of gender-based violence through education has always been one of our primary goals since it goes both ways - prevention and empowerment. For example, we educate to prevent GBV, however, in BSM Digital Literacy Program, we educate to empower GBV survivors to have better chances at seeking gainful employment by enriching their digital skills - the program is already a global innovation itself in handling GBV. Yet its most innovative approach is job application mentorship which happens all year-round and the internship opportunities supported by partnering organizations. Such partnerships expand the empowerment in a larger-scale by encouraging companies to hire GBV survivors who joined the program. 

For the first year, it will be serving 30 students. We would like to keep expanding the Program in the next year by tapping into at least 5 more foundations that handle GBV survivors with at least 50 students each, and double or triple that every year. In 5 years, if we are able to get enough funding, the minimum target number of GBV survivors would be around 20,000. 

The BSM Digital Literacy Program is using the UN SDG indicators,8.6.1 which is Proportion of Youth (15-24) not in Education, Employment or Training which is 22.74% in the Philippines; and Philippine Statistics Authority through the FLEMMS or the Functional Literacy, Education, Mass Media Survey is an indicator of the population with access to the internet as a means for acquiring knowledge and information; frequency of accessing the Internet. The current FLEMMS rate for 10-19 year olds (boys - 89.1% ; girls - 91.95%). 

The Program also uses the SICT or the Survey for Information and Communications Technology to see how many ICT core establishments utilize digital skills for business transactions and engagements, the current rate is 99.7%, while other non-core ICT industries require digital skills at a proportion rate of 95.3%. Non-core ICT industries such as water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation Activities; Construction; real estate activities; education; and Human Health and Social Work Activities scored 100% for digital skills. 

With these given figures, we are able to identify the importance of digital literacy in attaining gainful employment. 

Our organization is fairly new as it only became official in 2019, our full-time staff - 3 and our part-time staff or our volunteers, for this project would be 12. 

The whole solution team has extensive professional backgrounds in the digital media sector - our founder finished Bachelor's Degree in Communication and Media Studies in the Philippines and is currently taking post-graduate studies at the Sorbonne Business School of Sorbonne University in Paris, France. She understands the importance of digital skills in every business sector, and being a GBV survivor herself, she witnessed how such skills were able to give her a leverage in her entrepreneurial career despite her difficult background. This is also one of the main reasons why she initiated this project - to impart to survivors that they are able to succeed and achieve their goals as well. 

Our line-up of mentors, who are also our volunteers, are mostly working in the digital media industry as graphic artists, journalists, or business innovation strategists with either Bachelor or a Master Degree. 

Our modules are formed with the help of a partner organization that created a digital capabilities framework by a team of Doctors of Education. This framework is recognized by the Department of Education, and is already being taught in some schools in the Philippines. 

Our social workers who are monitoring GBV survivors on a daily basis, enable us to formulate the program by providing information on survivor's digital literacy and background. 

Each input is of utmost importance, but the primary factor that makes the program successful is everyone's deep understanding about the importance of digital skills as a key to a GBV survivor's successful societal reintegration.

Our team embodies the values of diversity as we are Filipina professionals, advocates, humanitarians, social workers and GBV survivors from different age groups, we have come together as we realize the importance of successful societal reintegration of GBV survivors which would only be possible if we unite; of equity as we initiate projects that would empower GBV survivors (as members of the vulnerable part of the society) to be able to successfully reintegrate into society - meaning financial and economic independence; of inclusion as we express the importance of societal reintegration of GBV survivors through digital skills and other entrepreneurial opportunities. 

We would like to become an MIT Solver to expand our resources on digital technology for our programs for GBV survivors. Aside from access to funds, various grants and in-kind resources, it is relevant for us to create strategic partnerships with institutions that recognize the importance and value of technology. Most importantly, the nine months of personalized support would leverage us as we progress every year. 

As we are a non-profit, human capital is our number one resource for every project that we have. Public relations and service distribution are both our primary financial sources and with the coronavirus situation, we definitely need huge help in that. Lastly, technology for our digital literacy program in order for our students to learn extensively, we will need to provide them adequate laptop units, stable internet connection and software applications. 

As of now, we have no specific group in mind, but we do know that we would like to partner with organizations that could help us in developing internet connectivity in the Philippines or improve digital literacy accessibility for GBV survivors in the Philippines. 

The BSM Digital Literacy Program qualifies for this prize as it is exactly what it stands for - digital literacy for all. Our target community (low-income GBV Filipino youth survivors) have limited to no access to digital literacy, making their digital skills incompetent which makes it difficult for them to find a job when they turn 18 years old - or as they reintegrate into society. Due to their backgrounds of being at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder plus the traumatic experiences they had, the only way for them to successfully be a part of the society again is to have a decent job. 99% of establishments in the Philippines require their employees to have competent digital skills, hence it is very important for them to have an organization provide learning opportunities such as ours so that they can have a chance at being financially independent with their gainful employment.