Clare Amador - Co-founder of YTRiP; education and ecotourism advocate

September 25, 2008

 

If there was one thing that Clare Amador, co-founder of YTRiP, would change in her past, it would be studying more about NGOs and how to run a non-profit organization—everything else she would keep.

But all is well that ends well. More than two years after its foundation, YTRiP has become an organization looked upon for its social innovation—a tourism, education, and cultural awareness program all molded in one. And Clare and her team’s future plans provide brighter promises.

Balancing work and her involvement with YTRiP is an act unbeknownst to Clare…but somehow she is able to handle both profession and community service, albeit a challenge.

“I don’t really know how it happens,” Clare said. “At the end of the day, I’m fulfilled with work and I’m fulfilled because of YTRiP.”

“I like what I’m doing—my job and what YTRiP is going through,” she added. “Even if I had to stay up at 5am, any of those two things is ok with me if I like what I’m doing.”

Maybe it’s true. When  you find your life’s true passion, you never have to work a day in your life.  Hear from Clare Amador, one of the founders of YTRiP, a youth-led non-government organization that promotes sustainable local tourism and responsible travel to develop love for country, heritage, and everything else Pinoy.  In this interview, she talks about the importance of knowing and understanding one’s culture, and how she has grown up to love travel and nature.

All these and more only here on Greater Good Philippines.    

 

Jay-R Patron:  What do you do currently?

 

Clare Amador:  Currently, I work at the office of Senator Mar Roxas in his political unit.  I basically coordinate for sectors, sectoral issues.  That’s my day job.  The other one I’m doing is Y-TRiP.  Do I describe the NGO already?  Anyways, Y-TRiP is a volunteer org basically.  We promote travel and culture in the Philippines for Filip inos so that people can learn to value their heritage, their culture.  First understand and then value their heritage and culture.  It’s an awareness campaign, it’s a volunteerism kind of thing.  YTRiP is about getting to know the Philippines, getting to know your culture, and in that way you get to know who you are, get to know yourself.  And by valuing or knowing that, you get to value yourself and become a more responsible citizen, more caring.

 

Jay-R Patron:  How is a normal day at work to you like?

 

Clare Amador:  At work?  Usually day is full of calls, coordination work, people to talk to, sectors to study.  It starts 9 and ends at 6 or 7.

 

Jay-R Patron:  How did YTRiP come about?

 

Clare Amador:  YTRiP started as an idea.  Personally, I wanted a youth tourism program for the Philippines.  I felt that it is lacking… I’ve been traveling since I was 5 or 6 years old—more of family trips—and I felt the value of travel being able to teach, being able to give experiences.  And the more I share these travel stories with friends, it’s either they’re biased of their experiences or they want it but they don’t know how to get it.  As I grew older, I had an opportunity to backpack around Cordillera and Ilocos.  This is where I saw that there’s opportunity for people, even those who can’t afford to travel so much, to see the Philippines.  I also had a short teaching stint at a local university in Pangasinan for Tourism students, and realized that they didn’t even value their heritage.  They could not even tell where specific landmarks were.  And these were college juniors, travel management juniors.  It was a very sad experience, after that I went backpacking and traveling and realized that… you can do it on the street.  You can travel without the aircon car, you can travel without the aircon room.  The process is much more enriching.  Ideas came up about coming up with a guide post and then turning it into a youth tourism program and then eventually turning it into an NGO.  Seeing that it is an NGO, the avenue is much bigger.  There is more leeway for you to move and when people believe in your vision, you can get more volunteers to go with you; you get more advocates to go with you.  In 2006, YTRiP was founded among friends.

 

Jay-R Patron:  How many founding members does YTRiP have?

 

Clare Amador:  There are about 8 of us who started it.  And then family and friends there were about 50… 50 supporters already.  The list grew over the past two years.  There are people who say, “We believe in what you do,” or “We are with you in this advocacy.”  But we encountered a problem in getting these people to join and be physically present that’s why we had to re-launch and come up with other membership programs to actually standardized the whole thing.  But I guess that’s part of the whole NGO.  At first, we really just wanted to be a volunteer group and advocacy campaign but a lot of challenges came up like sustainability, real membership, and legislative issues that we had to take care of.  Things like that. 

 

Jay-R Patron:  Legislative meaning?

 

Clare Amador:  Meaning SEC registration, BIR report.

 

Jay-R Patron:  How long did it take you to register?  Go to DTI, SEC, whatever?  Did you have to go to DTI?  BIR?

 

Clare Amador:  No, BIR.  BIR is about two months, SEC is about a month.

 

Jay-R Patron:  How much capital, if I may ask, did you put into this organization?

 

Clare Amador:  There’s no definite number.  It’s like, “Ok, we need to spend on this.”  Cash out.  “We need to do this and that.”  Cash out. 

 

Jay-R Patron:  When you’re registering an NGO you don’t need any capital whatsoever?

 

Clare Amador:  You need a specific amount.  Say for YTRiP it’s about 12,000… and it’s something you put on your registration papers, and it’s ok.  I think that’s why it’s so easy for people to put up NGOs.  Foundations, not anymore because you need one million pesos for that.  But NGOs, at least advocacy groups, it can be easily done.  Sometimes it’s better if you’re registered so that people can get to talk to you more.  And this is for anybody who wants to start a movement or a group.  Even with a sponsorship.  At first, you have to be transparent.  You need to have authenticity.

 

Jay-R Patron:  Do you have to have a minimum number of incorporators?

 

Clare Amador:  I think it’s five.  At least five.

 

Jay-R Patron:  So how do you balance your time between your full-time job and YTRiP?  Or is there such a thing?

 

Clare Amador:  I don’t know.  I don’t really know how it happens.  At the end of the day, I’m fulfilled with work and I’m fulfilled because of YTRiP.  I wake up the next day… I like what I’m doing—my job and what YTRiP is going through.  Even if I had to stay up at 5am, any of those two things is ok with me if I like what I’m doing.  But nowadays, people are warning me.  I easily get tired.  But to manage it, it just happens.  I think time management is a talent and I’m not good at it. 

 

Jay-R Patron:  What is your most memorable YTRiP moment?

 

Clare Amador:  Oh my god, there’s so many.  Memorable YTRiP moment…

 

Jay-R Patron:  You can name a couple… or three?

 

Clare Amador:  Ok.  This happened with the volunteers.  Just this morning, I remembered, one of the core group members texted me asking about DENR and she asked about mining issue, and I asked why.  She’s from an island off Luzon.  I think she’s… between Bacolod.  And she said, “You know what?  Because of YTRiP I’ve become interested in mining issues in my town.”  Whereas before, she didn’t really care… she cared but not so much.  I mean to the point of studying and learning more about it.  Other moments.  I usually get messages, from the core at least, and that because of YTRiP they were able to see things differently, and they have come to value their culture and their experiences more.  One time, we had a talk in PUP.  To find 300, 400 interested in what you’re talking about, and cheering, and singing the national anthem, sabay sabay, wow!  And when you ask them about how much they love the Philippines, they come up to you and say, “Ate, I’ve always wanted to do something like what you’re doing and YTRiP has showed me that, yes, something can be done.”  It’s more of that.  I think YTRiP, it’s really the value of the org is when people come up to you and say, “What you’re saying is something that I believe in as well.  And we’re thankful that you’re there because now we can work with you, we’ve found an avenue, we have found a way, or we can do something.”  Another thing… sorry, ang dami pala.  There was this kid who told me… because we were talking about issues about NGOs and when YTRiP started some people really reacted that it’s floppy, it’s all… education advocacies are hard to measure.  This girl came up to me and said, “You know what Ate?  For me YTRiP is all about the good things.  At the end of the day, even with all the problems we’re facing here in the country.  YTRiP says there’s still a lot of good things to know about the Philippines, there’s still a lot of good things that we can do.  That is what YTRiP as all about for her.  At that time, people were judging the org eh.  For her to say that at the end of the day, YTRiP shows some hope.  That is something very memorable for me.

 

Jay-R Patron:  How many places… do you have any count?

 

Clare Amador:  In terms of places where YTRiP went to, as a group, very very minimal.  One is because we have to talk about time and resource, and even if we can budget it very cheaply the time, for me, it’s the time that is hard to get everybody to go together.  But for field trips, for little activities we’ve done, minimal din eh.  Probably it can go over 11.  In two years’ time that’s very minimal—two, three years.

 

Jay-R Patron:  Personally, out of all the places that you’ve been to, which one do you like best?

 

Clare Amador:  Right now my personal favorite is Palawan and Siquijor.  Siquijor, it’s a small island, you can explore it in a day, but the things you see… my god!  I mean you would want to go back over and over.  There was this waterfall in Siquijor that had three tiers and to get there you have to go down the road.  Even if you’re on the road, pababa ka pa lang, you won’t see the falls but you would hear it.  And when we were there, it was really really nice.  The old churches, the people, fantastic.

 

Jay-R Patron:  Have you been to Sagada?

 

Clare Amador:  Not yet.  Actually a lot of people are asking me about that.  It’s just that I have not been there because of the time but… Banaue I go to all the time.  You’ve been to Sagada?

 

Jay-R Patron:  Yeah, I’ve been there. 

 

Clare Amador:  I want to go there by myself.  I haven’t had time.

 

Jay-R Patron:  I think it’s a good choice to go on a trip by one’s self… Sagada. 

 

Clare Amador:  That’s why I have not asked anyone from YTRiP.

 

Jay-R Patron:  What common traits do you think we Filipinos share?  Ang dami nating cultures, ang dami nating traditions.  But what it the common trait na meron tayo?

 

Clare Amador:  This is cliché.  We’re masayahin, we’re always happy, we’re always very… we always look at the good side.  One thing I find is that, yes it is true, we’re always happy, we’re always looking at the good side, we’re always smiling, we always have a reason to smile.  One thing I see is how much we value family.  For my travels, it has been the warmth.  Filipinos are known for being very hospitable, very thoughtful.  Even in some places I’ve stayed to, strangers are so welcoming.  They’re not scared of you.  Even if it’s far away, like in Banaue, in Batad, although they’re very into tourists, even so they’re very kind and they don’t get tired of you.  Out of the blue they just talk to you.  When I went to Ilocos as well, I used to not talk to strangers.  But I realized that it’s one of the most fulfilling parts of travel.  They’re so warm.  You talk as if you’re been barkadas for a long time.  And that’s something that I am so proud of here in the Philippines.  We’re very warm, open, very kind.

 

Jay-R Patron:  And why do this?  Why not just dedicate your time to an 8 to 5 job and go home and then earn for yourself, and then what you earn you spend for traveling?  Why YTRiP?  Why is there such a thing?

 

Clare Amador:  When I was younger I’ve always been involved in activities, sectoral activities.  And one of my objectives has always been to share experiences, to share knowledge, even then I wanted people… I don’t know.  Maybe it was the way I was brought up or that’s how I felt even in a young age.  It’s always about—if I am going through this experience, why can’t other people go through the same thing.  With YTRiP, it is more of, if I can travel and learn so much and because of all these things I have become more caring, more responsible, then maybe this is a good way for people as well to go through and learn the same things that I have or at least be more enriched in their own experiences… they have something good come out of it.  I’ve also asked myself why can’t I just go back and do these things by myself and earn and travel on my own.  But there’s always one part of me saying… it always happens, never I get an opportunity or I get a project.  I always ask myself, “Ok what can I do to extend this to other people?” or “What can I do to help other people get the same thing?”  I tried working for private groups in a sense I tried working for a profit-driven company.  I just lasted one month.  It’s not that I couldn’t take it, but it’s more of because I know more could be done.

 

Jay-R Patron:  Why is it important to promote our culture, heritage, tradition?

 

Clare Amador:  Travel for me is education.  Promoting culture, valuing culture, valuing tradition… I’ve always believed in a person’s identity being connected to everything—being connected to one’s culture, one’s tradition, and it helps you define who you are.  It helps you define your dreams, your aspirations.  It helps you define your direction.  It even helps you define or understand why you love doing certain things.  It’s more of that.  One thing, I saw how nice, fantastic, and how beautiful Philippine culture is, or actually culture in general… how everything is so colorful and how it makes us human.  In a sense why we promote culture so we won’t forget, so that we can still be grounded and know that they’re all connected, know that we’re all together in this.  When I was in a conference in Banaue, my friend and I were watching a group of women dancing an Igorot dance.  We both cried.  She had her own reasons.  My reasons were it hit me that the dance they were doing was very familiar, and even though I was not from Cordillera, it was something I know I can do.  In the end of it, I was crying because I realized that, “Hey, I own that culture.  I am part of that culture.”  It was very enriching.  After that dance I went up to the women and talked to them and I felt the connection.  It’s promoting culture in a sense that it makes you more understanding and recognizing your culture allows you to recognize other cultures as well.  Tourism does that.  That’s the good side of tourism.  It helps you understand, it helps you widen your horizons.

 

Jay-R Patron:  Out of all your whole life experience, what was your greatest challenge and how did you overcome it?

 

Clare Amador:  Staying in a job long enough.  Greatest challenge… we all go through different things.  I have my own issues.  I guess at some point you move in a certain group, you move in a certain culture and you forget who you are.  YTRiP reminded me of that.  I was moving in a direction where I could be part of all these people saying the same things, doing the same things, and then realized that something else can be done.  Then came YTRiP.  Another challenge, in truth, it’s really putting up YTRiP.  It’s realizing that you’re young, you have no resources whatsoever, you‘re not that connected to as many rich people as you want to be—people who can actually support you.  Putting it up and then still having… even if you put it up, it’s not through.  You’re a group of friends, you have different directions in mind.  It’s a challenge already to just put everything in this one page and move the same direction.  And there’s the challenge of sustaining it.  Everything is coming out of our pockets and it was already, “Hey, what’s the value of you spending so much on this and nothing is coming back?” …except self-fulfillment, although that is a big thing already.  And then going through the bureaucracy.  It’s more of a wake up call.  About a year ago I almost gave up on YTRiP.  It was more because of the stress, the pressure.  There were a lot of instances where projects were laid out and they never happened, and you knew you put your name on the line, other people’s name on the line.  I guess… some people say it’s part of the business, and god they’re the hardest ever.  At some point I say, “If I give up YTRiP, would I look back and say…” and I ask myself what I want to do after, I’d still say I want to do YTRiP.  I didn’t give up, I pursued.

 

Jay-R Patron:  How about greatest achievement?  What has been your greatest life achievement so far?

 

Clare Amador:  Personally?  So far it’s really YTRiP.  When I got in college I’ve helped found an org as well.  I don’t know, I keep starting things. 

 

Jay-R Patron:  What org was this?

 

Clare Amador:  Development Society in Ateneo.  It was a batch thing, class thing.  We started it, I was founding chair.  After that we jumpstarted Heritage Conservation Society Youth.  Although I kind of lied low for quite some time, but now it’s up and about.  And then I started YTRiP.  I guess that’s it.  It’s really YTRiP.  So from where I am, when ever people ask me what it is that I want to do, I always say it’s YTRiP.  I work so I can do YTRiP.  It has allowed me to meet so many people.  it has helped me make sure that… or at least help make dreams come true, even if they were just small dreams.  Whenever someone says, “I’ve always wanted to do this and YTRiP made it happened.”  It’s a big thing for me already.  At 24, you put up an NGO and make it live for at least three years, to me that’s something big already.  And it’s something you can’t do on your own… I realized that.  And traveling on my own, that’s one big achievement for me.  You know how we are here in the Philippines, we take care of our little girls so much.  When I was able to do that, it was a big thing.  Then I said, “Maybe other girls can do this.” 

 

Jay-R Patron:  How does family play in all this?  How has family molded you as a person and sort of make you think the way you do about the Philippines, about our culture?

 

Clare Amador:  Both my parents work in government.  My dad is in the environment department.  My mom is in tourism.  So growing up, it has been a relationship of travel and nature.  And my dad makes me work in the farm, pinagtatanim ako ng palay.  I harvest rice, I harvest munggo.  And then my mom brings me with her whenever she travels and always, when I’m not with her, she comes back with stories and she comes back with all these pasalubongs from all these places.  It’s been of interest that we’re exposed to these things and that’s what they always wanted.  They wanted kids who are exposed, they wanted kids who are aware.  My grandparents, at least the ones from Pangasinan, were involved in community development.  It has always been… there are always people coming in to our house asking for help and I see lolo and lola extending help.  My grandparents from Bicol lived a very rural life.  So when we visit it’s always related to lupa, it’s always related to tubig, it’s always related to the small family gatherings.  We’re exposed to all these rituals, we’re exposed to all these provincial food, and we’re exposed to palay and carabaos.  There’s a connection already to agriculture, there’s a connection already to Art because of my mom and my grandmother.  There’s a connection always with people.  We always hear stories, we always hear different points of view.  Right from the very start we were already groomed to care for others, to know about others.  Growing up, they let you have a sense of fairness and justice.  With all these exposure, with all these things, it’s more of a molding already of you being a Filipino, you being a member of a family, a member of a community, and you being… having a culture of diversity and richness, and food and family, care.  In terms of their support for YTRiP, they’ve backed me up at the very start.  It has been like that.  Even my brothers, whenever I need money, “Ok, we’ll donate it to YTRiP” and all that.  I think it all accounts for the people to help YTRiP.  Their families also pitch in.  Mine I’m so proud of my family especially my mom.  She has been backing me up ever since… even until now.  When I came back from my first big trip, my first independent trip, I told her I don’t want to work for a year, if she can let me and just let me volunteer for orgs, she said okay.  For a year, she let me do my thing.  I volunteered for some NGOs and within the same year I built YTRiP.  And at the end of the year, she said, “Ok, anak can you work now?  You have done your thing.  You’ve built YTRiP.  I will support you.  But you need to work.”  Whenever they see the things that are happening for the org, and they know how hard I work for it, they’re still supportive.  Sometimes they ask, “Do you still have time for yourself?  Your money is always in this and that, why not for yourself?”  But they just do that because they check on you.  At the end of the day, whenever you say, “This is what I’ve always wanted to do,” they say, “Ok,” they support it.  They know that we were brought up that way.  Now it’s no longer my mom who brings home the pasalubong from all these provinces, it’s me or sometimes my brothers.  It has been a practice between us.  Sometimes we don’t na eh kasi we get tired of it, simply because we grew up doing it, and grew up tasting all these things.  And it’s something that we share with other people.

 

Jay-R Patron:  What are those NGOs that you have volunteered for?

 

Clare Amador:  Mainly, Rock Ed Philippines and on the side there’s Heritage Conservation Society.  Every now and then, for instance, I have a friend in Ateneo.  When she volunteers I help out.  But this happens rarely.  Things like that.  For instance, every time we would meet an editor for something, I pitch in.  Sabog in a way that I do this and that, but finding what you want to do.  With my job, I do this and that, finding out what I wanted to do.  And then when YTRiP came up, I had to say, “It’s not for all the time.” 

 

Jay-R Patron:  Are you into music?  Do you play any instruments?

 

Clare Amador:  I’m tone deaf.  But I appreciate music.  I can’t say… I’ve tried drums, I’ve tried piano, I was told my wrist were too hard… stiff.

 

Jay-R Patron:  Who would you consider as your mentor?

 

Clare Amador:  I have teachers in Ateneo.  One is my program director.  I’m a development studies grad, Ateneo de Manila.  My program director is Leland de la Cruz.  He took care of us, he molded us in a way that oriented our class for a more open-minded society to begin to love NGO work, to say that there are options in development work, not just foundations and NGOs, but government or international organizations.  He encouraged a multi-disciplinary look at development which we really appreciated.  Even until now, whenever I have questions I go to him, whenever I need people to ask, people to ask as resource person, he always helps.  And he has been guiding me since 2003, since I graduated.  Since I started in BS, he has been such a good guide as to where your career would be and very supportive.  And then the other mentor that I would consider is Mr. Fernando Zialcita.  He is a professor at the Ateneo.  He is the cultural heritage program director.  When I was studying there, I took up cultural heritage as a minor.  Development was my major and cultural eco, political development, and then cultural heritage was a field of interest.  That was where I was taught how to appreciate culture indifferently.  The interest in Philippine culture started, well not started, it was affirmed there.  And now, when he heard about YTRiP, he was very happy about it.  He has been helping me with projects, and tips.  Recently, he made lecture about tourism in his class.

 

Jay-R Patron:  Nice.  How was it?

 

Clare Amador:  Scary.  Five years ago.  It was just like that.  I was just there.  And he always says, this is a product of the cultural heritage program of Ateneo.  And it’s a big thing I think.  It’s something that people don’t really go into.  But when you go through it, with your heritage class, you’re taught how to appreciate… not taught but shown how to appreciate differently… understand it differently.  And then it becomes deeper, it becomes more meaningful for you.  Those two people I consider my biggest mentors.  My mom first, and then my other bosses.  The two of them have been the most consistent, and my mom.

 

Jay-R Patron:  Traveling is already a given, but besides that, what would you consider as your passion and purpose?

 

Clare Amador:  For me it has always been education, and youth.  Two things.  At the very beginning I thought I was going to be a teacher.  I’ve always wanted to teach.  I really believe that for our country to fully develop, people should have access to education… really good education—and I’ve always believed in starting with youth.  And YTRiP was able to tie them all up because travel is a passion, education is a passion, and youth as your sector as your stakeholder.  When YTRiP came up as an idea, it tied everything together.  It’s even more a deep kind of education.  It’s more experiential.  It used to be an issue for me.  It used to be a problem that, “Ok, I’ll tie up travel, I’ll tie up education, I’ll tie up young people.  Who am I?  What do I do?  What do I like?”  And then thigns came out like governance, organization, and when I was assessing everything it still boiled down to having an access, and for me it was YTRiP.  You’re able to channel all these things together, all your interests, in to one concrete thing.  It took a while to process but I’m happy with the result.

 

Jay-R Patron:  If there was one message that you would like to tell readers or listeners out of all that has been discussed tonight, what would that message be?

 

Clare Amador:  Well… for one thing, YTRiP was driven by passion.  It was only when I discovered what I wanted to do that I found a more concrete direction for my life.  And when I started talking about it, people started saying, “Hey we want to do that as well.”  And you find your fellow advocates, you find your new friends, you find your team.  And whenever I see people come up to me and say, “How do you start it?”, “I’ve always wanted to do this.”  I guess this time I can really say, “Ok, don’t be scared if you want to start something because your passion follows.”  It’s true, even if its cliché, you follow your dreams and if you believe in it hard enough, these things will come up.  When I was younger I was known for starting things and not following through because when it’s hard, I just let go and give up.  But when I felt YTRiP was it, I said, “Ok.”  Even if a lot of things are so messy, you still go for it.  You still want to push through it, mainly because you’ve found your center.  And I realized that if you were blessed with a certain idea and people give high thoughts about it then that’s really a sign that it’s for you… it’s for you to pursue.  If you have something, if you’re passionate about something, you really have to follow it.  With regards to what YTRiP stands for, our message really is, “Kilalanin ang Pilipinas, kilalanin ang sarili,” or get to know your country, get to know your nation, and you’ll get to know who you are.  If you truly believe that once you find out, once you find the value of your country, the value of your culture, you’ll know how to value yourself.  You will always think that there are a lot of ways to support the Philippines and travel is one thing.  But being a socially responsible person, a Filipino, is a bigger region of it.  For us tourism and travel are just two.  The bottomline of our message is that you can be a better Filipino, a better person by making the right choices, making more responsible choices.

 

Jay-R Patron:  Have you had or do you have any regrets?

 

Clare Amador:  It would have saved me pain and stress if I had studied how to put up NGOs more, better.  There are a lot of administrative things and when YTRiP started, it was really more on a whim.  At that time when we were talking about it, my friends were just, “You want to do it?  Nationalism is hot right now, you do it now.  Unless you wait 10 more years, the Intramuros that you love so much will be gone and you’ll regret it.”  So we started YTRiP immediately.  The thing is you also have to anticipate what’s going to happen next, the resources you need, the administrative matters that you have to take care of.  I didn’t.  If I can turn back time, I would do it.  I would study how to build an NGO more.  I would look at opportunities for the org to grow, things like that.  Sometimes… at 23 or 24 you have so many big dreams and big plans, the problem then was you have always big plans and you have concrete ideas how to get them but in truth, your concrete ideas are not concrete because you did not study the field well enough.  That’s one thing I’m recovering from.  We’re doing the best we can to refresh YTRiP.  Even as a social enterprise, it was a very late idea.  If social entrepreneurship was something we thought of from the very beginning it would have saved us a lot of resources and time.

 

Jay-R Patron:  How did you or where did you hear about social entrepreneurship?

 

Clare Amador:  From Leland, from my program director.  We were talking about it and he said, “YTRiP can be a social enterprise.  Within itself is a social innovation already.”  In the Philippines we don’t have an org that promotes Philippine culture in a different way, and he said, “From the tours you create, you can earn from them and funnel it back to fund operation.”  Back then we were thinking, NGO—you are donor dependent, you have to go for grants, that was my initial idea eh.  There are ideas of putting up this and that, doing this and that to earn but they were not priorities.  The priority was finding people who can fund when in fact at that time there was not anyone.  You’re new, people won’t really do anything for you.  That’s when it came up, this social entrepreneurship, studied it a bit, met people, how to go about it.  We’re still gearing up to be one.  We’re trying to create a tour program, we’re trying to organize and market tours and whatever we earn from that goes back to the organization.  It’s a fund specific for public school kids.  And we used to not charge for our learning sessions but recently, we realized to survive we have to at least ask people to give out token funds and people won’t mind.  They won’t mind paying for something that they know has value.  In social entrepreneurship, we learned that if you’re an NGO they think that you offer lesser, or cheaper services.  It’s ok that they think that but you can’t be the cheapest.  You cannot undervalue your product.  One thing I learned in social entrepreneurship is when you undervalue your product, or give it a lower price, you’re undervaluing, you’re bringing down the value of that product.  For instance, if this thing costs 5000 on a market competitive price and you offer it at 3000, you’re providing access to that person or you’re providing more people to access it.  However, you’re undervaluing the product.  It means you’re not giving importance to the product in that sense.  I realized that if I sell the Philippines cheaper, it doesn’t really show that I’m valuing the Philippines more, not really.  And people are actually willing to pay a certain amount of price.  So we thought, “Let’s be market competitive but let’s not overcharge, and let’s not undercharge.”  And then we had to shift our idea of an NGO being grant-dependent, donor-dependent, we have to shift that as well.  And one of our plans in the future is to put up a YTRiP hostel, earning from it, maybe come up with a network.  That’s one of the reasons why we put up a membership program.  Before it was just volunteer, email us and show up.  Not many people go.  Now we ask people to shell out a certain amount of money and put some stake on it for them to say, “Ok, I invested something.  I have to be there.”  We realized that it was much more effective.  As a social enterprise, we’re still on our way to make it really work.  But a lot of people say that it shows a lot of promise.

 

Jay-R Patron:  What other things can we expect from YTRiP in the coming months, year?

 

Clare Amador:  Well, there are plans of coming up with a travel hand book for Pinoys.  It’s something that we really think will appeal to the Filipino psyche.  I travel with a Lonely Planet book and it’s designed for the backpacker from the Americas or Europe.  That’s one thing.  We’re gearing to visit more schools, at least in Metro Manila.  Hopefully we can come up with more workshop on traveling and environment.  We had a Backpacking 101 thing earlier.  All of them were girls.

 

Jay-R Patron:  Really?!

 

Clare Amador:  You see the development.  You’re thinking this is the dawn of the girl traveler in the Philippines.  When I was traveling Siquijor, I was with a girl and people were asking us, “Why are you traveling on your own in a very strange land and you don’t know anyone here?”  But you break that, and when we saw all the participants for the backpacking lecture were all girls.

 

Jay-R Patron:  How many were they?

 

Clare Amador:  There were about 10 girls.  It was really nice.  Maybe we can even plan a certain trip for the 10 girls who went.  But yeah, I think it was a development that girl travelers can happen.  A lot of girls are traveling on their own.  It’s not a new thing.  Maybe this time YTRiP can do something about that.  The lecturer was a guy so he was surrounded with all these girls.

 

Jay-R Patron:  To wrap up, do you have anything else to add, say, promote maybe?

 

Clare Amador:  In the future we hope to reach out to Filipinos abroad, encourage the children of OFWs and Filipinos who grew up abroad in Europe or in the states, to come to the Philippines and discover home.  It’s one of our messages.  When that happens… even now, if anyone is interested now, they can just come up to YTRiP and we can help them.  We can even help design itineraries.  One thing we notice is that usually people just go to their hometown and they don’t really explore… now it’s time to explore.  There are so many places that people can visit.  Aside from the traveling, you also have to be responsible.  You have to take care of how you act, be aware of your impact to the community, to the environment.  I highly encourage people to come to the Philippines and discover what the hype is all about.  I also encourage people to taste Philippine cuisine, that’s something that is lacking.  Whenever people are asked to describe Philippine food, they don’t really know what to say.  But there’s a huge awareness now that the Philippine cuisine is fantastic, comparable to other all other Asian countries.  It’s something that they should try.

 

Jay-r Patron:  That’s it.  Thank you very much.