Venice Siat was 14 when a 9th grade social studies class changed the direction of her life. She calls it “an incredibly simple encounter” — a lesson in class but a harsh reality for far too many “You see the struggles in healthcare, flood control… and insufficient services for the lower class; at the same time, you are also privileged enough to do something or to help someone”. For Venice, addressing the roots to this lay in something familiar to a 14 year old – education.
“Education. Education is the foundation for everything. It builds our minds from the ground up and influences our beliefs which ultimately shape the future of this country.And without sufficient education, we cannot solve the country’s insufficiencies” she says.
For most students, that realization ends at the classroom door. For Venice, it became the starting point for Youth for Youth, an NGO she founded to get educational resources to underprivileged and younger students — and one she still runs today, in her final year of high school.
The organization runs two projects a year. The first pairs a tutoring workshop with a feeding program and donation drive. The second is a Christmas initiative distributing preloved toys and school supplies to public elementary schools. Their most recent effort, Project Bituin, was a donation drive at St. Gregory Elementary School in Cainta, sponsored by Assumption Antipolo’s Batch 27 as their benefit dinner beneficiary. It reached roughly a hundred students — the most Youth for Youth has helped in a single project.
None of it runs on Venice alone. The organization is structured into four committees: Executive, which organizes projects; Creatives and Promotions handling publication materials; Fundraising and Merchandise, young artists producing pin designs and merch; and Finance. One year, that Fundraising and Merchandise team helped raise around 25,000 pesos — enough to expand what the organization could give to its partner school.
