To our honorable guests, ________________(Mention the names of the personalities that need to be

acknowledged)____________.

The youth are always seen but they cannot be heard. They are seen as members of our community but
people seldomly listen to them. Most parents usually send their school to finish their studies. And in
school, they learn to become critical thinkers. However, people say that they should not be involved in
things that do not concern their studies. This shows that the youth are being dismissed and are being
stereotyped that they cannot be trusted with decision-making.

The truth is, our Bangsamoro youth can be engaged in bringing positive changes to our community.
Aside from their grounded experiences, they have the right to partake in making decisions that can
impact society especially when the decisions that are being made can directly affect them. Furthermore,
they also experienced inequality because of the lack of representation and policymakers who are not
conscious of the realities of the Bangsamoro youth. The time for their voices to be heard has been long
overdue. They are the leaders of today and tomorrow, and they deserved to be heard now.

In lieu of this, Save the Children Philippines, through the Project SAYA, acknowledges that the youth
have the right to exercise their rights to be active Bangsamoro citizens. With our core values, we commit
to involving the youth in decision-making with accountability, ambition, collaboration, creativity, and
integrity especially in improving the lives of children, women, youth, and other vulnerable sectors in our
community.

Save the Children Philippines supports the implementation of Cotabato’s first youth hub because we
firmly believe that our Bangsamoro youth are always full of ideas in different aspects of life. They are
here to look into education, technology, politics, agriculture, community development, and social
change.

We believe that the Bangsamoro youth is a great asset of Cotabato City and should be trusted to engage
in social transformation and community development. The more we put them forward, the more we can
come up with a stronger, healthy, dynamic, well-educated, resourceful, and collaborative network of
Bangsamoro young leaders within our community. And through the Youth Hub, this is just first of the
many initiatives in enabling the Bangsamoro Youth leaders of today and tomorrow to make a difference
in the lives of each and every one.

Maraming Salamat at magandang hapon sa inyong lahat.