Stichting Bayanihan- Philippine Women’s Center in the Netherlands: Empowering Women Through Information

By: Lana Kristine Jelenjev-Flores, Bayanihan volunteer & voorlichter

“When women thrive, all of society benefits, and succeeding
generations are given a better start in life,”

                        -Kofi Annan
                                                   7^th  Secretary-General UN
                                               2001 Nobel Peace Prize

Since its establishment as a recognized foundation in 1991, Stitchting Bayanihan has endeavored to provide education and training for Filipina migrants on various topics pertaining to living in the Netherlands. For this year, the focus of the group is addressing the issue of domestic violence with the theme, “STOP GEWELD TEGEN FILIPPIJNSE VROUWEN” (Stop Violence Against Filipina Women). To properly disseminate the information on domestic violence, Bayanihan has sponsored a three day “voorlichters’ training” last May 9, 23 and June 27, 2009 to select women within and around the Utrecht area. The aim was to train “voorlichters” who will give information to other Filipinas on domestic violence awareness, patterns and prevention. Participants of the said trainings were Joy Felter-Jumawan, Lana Kristine Jelenjev – Flores,  Roselle van Mulligen – Hernandez, Susan van Oostenbrugge – Gonzales, Salome aan den Toorn – Panoy,  Pops de Wit-de los Santos, Shirly van Wijck-Rivera, Nimfa Hilderman-Quilingen and Rochita Loenen-Ruiz.

Bayanihan voorlichters who shared their expertise and experiences were Tess de Man-Selibio, Ching Lansang, Cora van Campenhout –Alarcon and Rose Slotema-Haboc. The sessions were given by Diana Oosterbeek – Latoza, Social Cultural Worker / Coördinator Stichting Bayanihan.Ate Dyanne,  as most Bayanhinan volunteers fondly call her, was trained as voorlichter on the awareness & prevention of domestic violence by Tiye International, a platform for migrant women organization in the Netherlands. She also took Aggression and Domestic violence as minor studies on  Culturele en Maatschappelijk Vorming (CMV) at the Instituut voor Social Work/De Horst in Amersfoort

Highlights of the training included: expressing the feelings and thoughts of the trainees on a shirt concerning violence  through drawings (“ Let’s Hang our Dirty Laundry”), knowing the critical incidents, myths and facts surrounding domestic violence particularly the factors that perpetuate gender-based domestic violence; the role of culture in one’s identity; processing of voorlichters’ qualities that affect communication; and understanding the dimensions of empowerment

As part of the new voorlichters’ role to give information to other Filipinas a series of information sessions are scheduled from the months of September till January 2010. The schedules are as follows:

September 26 at Stichting Boeg: Location: Trefcentrum Cartesiusweg “Oase”
October 17 at Stichting Boeg: Location: Australielaan 6 Utrecht
January 31 again at Stichting Boeg: Location: Australielaan 6 Utrecht

This project was subsidized by Dienst Maatschappelijk Ontwikkeling (DMO), Afdeling Welzijn van de Gemeente Utrecht. For more information on upcoming info/workshop sessions please call :

Bayanihan Office , Australielaan 6,  3526 AB Utrecht
Tel/Fax: 030 2400878; mob. 0622947759 ( Tuesday & Friday)

Bayanihan Rotterdam, Dona Daria, Centrum voor Vrouwen en Emancipatie
Gerard Scholtenstraat 129, 3035 SJ Rotterdam, mob. 0615307200 ( Wednesday)

Or you can just email at bayanihan.nl@planet.nl.

The participants proudly “Hanging their dirty laundry” for everyone to see.

A group  picture after an eventful second day training.

The participants and Bayanihan voorlichters busy with one of the session activities.