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By Henrylito D. Tacio

BANSALAN, Davao del Sur - The place: Hope (Home of Progressive Example), a model barangay. It's only five a.m. but 18-year-old Ronnie Estrera is already wide-awake. The morning breeze has engulfed him. It makes him reluctant to get up. But as the "kitchen boy" for the week, he has no recourse but to force himself out of bed, prepare food and fix everything in the house. By 7:30 a.m., he and the five other occupants will be out in the fields to work.

Estrera's assignment at the Baptist Outside Of School Training (BOOST) program house changes every week. The following week, he will be assigned to feed the animals. After that, he will take care of the garden. His other companions have the same schedule of activities, alternating with each other. Reshuffling of job assignments every week is the same rule observed in three other BOOST houses occupied by 15 other out-of-school youths.

Doing household chores is a new experience for the young Estrera. Back home at New Clarin, Magsaysay, he was an incorrigible "stand-by" waiting for something to happen. A sophomore college student, he quit when his parents could not afford the high cost of education.

Estrera's condition is not an isolated case. Of about 11.5 million young people (up to 24 years old) in the Philippines, over 300,000 are unemployed, out of school in the rural areas.

Dr. Warlito A. Laquihon, named one of the Outstanding Young Men in the early 1980s for countryside development, said the Philippines is still rural despite the claim of the government that the country is on the threshold of economic prosperity.

"The rural areas remain underdeveloped because of the interrelated problems of poverty, disease and illiteracy," Dr. Laquihon said.  "This is the lamentable milieu at which most Filipino youths have to struggle and live with." He said majority of the young people in the Philippines is yearning to have education, but having no income, they are forced to drop out from schools. "If ever they have incomes, these are severely affected by uneconomic returns of traditional farming, the seasonal character of farming activities and inadequate training in modern agriculture," he deplored.

Documents from the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) showed that one of every five children had no early education. For every 100 children who enter Grade 1, only 65 finish elementary school, and only 47 of them finish high school. This means that by the age of 15, around 15 percent of the youth are likely to be out of school.

"If not properly guided, these out-of-school young people would indulge in juvenile delinquency, drug addiction, prostitution, and other unproductive activities," Dr. Laquihon said. He recommends that these out-of-school youths be tapped and directed to rewarding activities to minimize social strife that affects not only their immediate families but also the society as a whole.

A vehicle for this direction is the BOOST program of the Davao-based Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center (MBRLC), a private volunteer organization whose main objective is to help all people, especially upland farmers, experience abundant life as promised by Jesus Christ in John 10:10.

BOOST stresses the value orientation and skills that young people, especially those living in rural areas, need to succeed in life. The concept of setting up of BOOST lies in the necessity to provide out-of-school youths with the required know-how and skills on how to become productive.

"The BOOST program aims to enable out-of-school young people to become useful and successful farmers, better and effective community citizens, and good church leaders," explained BOOST agriculture trainer Noel Elmundo, "Technically, BOOST is a live-in, non-formal education on crop production, livestock raising, farm management, sound health, local government and better Christian living," Elmundo said.

Training is scheduled every three months with about 20 participants per batch. A group of five persons live in each of the four BOOST houses. "The house is about the same as the usual Filipino home, but it seems roomier with the rearranged space," Elmundo pointed out. "Even the top of the stove is slanted outward to carry some of the smoke out. The roof is used to catch water runoff."

Each weekday, the BOOST participants work in their assigned fields, attend classes and watch demonstrations. They are taught how to farm a hilly land sustainably, vegetable gardening, livestock raising, milk production, seed processing and plant propagation, among other things. "Everything we have is an example of how something will work," Elmundo maintains.

But it is not only farming that the BOOST trainees take up. Health is also included in the curriculum. "We want to equip our trainees with the knowledge and skills in preventing and treating common diseases using simple and available resources in the community," explained Sandra Alfaras, MBRLC health trainer.

Another reason is "for these young people to be aware of their roles in the family and the community as a whole in promoting good health." Health topics include common and not-so-common illnesses, maternal and child care, basic nutrition and herbal medicine. "The Philippines abounds with plants that have been known to have medicinal properties and have been used for their curative power throughout the ages," Alfaras said on why they're currently promoting the use of herbals as medicine.

More importantly, Christian living is also being taught . "MBRLC is a Christian institution and we want to share what Christ has done for us, physically and materially," Elmundo said.

Nearby the four BOOST houses are the trainers' quarters.

"In no other place in the Philippines does the teacher 'live' with the trainees," said Bible trainer Romeo Lopez. His life is an open book to trainees, and he is surprised , "at the youths' respect toward me and the other teacher (Elmundo)."-***