The Youth on Youthfest

We Filipinos are known for our youthfulness. Thanks to the humid tropics of our native homeland we have ageless skin but the most youthful of us all are the Filipino youths!

I was one of the few privileged to organize our very own Filipino-Kiwi Youthfest. It was held on the Saturday 25 August for 13-18 year olds. The only criteria was that you had to have any bit of Filipino blood in you. Whether you were full, half, half Filipino-half Chinese it didn't matter.

The youth fest included a range of entertaining games including the name game, pride attack (a very entertaining game where a furious race was held to attempt to pop a balloon before the other team. The only catch was that hands were forbidden!) Many came up with creative ways to achieve this. Pinoy dodgeball a personal favorite of mine went down well too. Snacks and refreshments were served before some of us put on a show to showcase some of our talents. Whether it be dancing or playing musical instruments, it was very entertaining.

The highlight of the afternoon would have to be meeting the Philippine Allstars. Representing the Philippines , Allstars are the world's hip hop champion in 2006. They sent in a personal video message all the way from the USA greeting us the Waikato Filipino youth.

We have a great community growing here in the Waikato and the Youthfest was a great opportunity for us to get to know each other better and share our great talents. I think we achieved this with more than 50 or so youths coming and enjoying their weekend. Hopefully we have even more next time! I know for myself that I have made many new friends and I'm sure others have as well.

This event has even inspired it's own Webpage on bebo (similar to friendster)

http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=4711404983 check it out!!

We have Ate Kim to thank for everything! Being the head director of this whole operation, she had spent countless hours organizing prizes and venues and transport for this several weeks earlier. She did a great job and the afternoon was a true success! We look forward to the next Youthfest coming up!

Thanks also to the WFA for their support and all the performers

Guest Blogger : Dennis Kirkby

Dennis is a member of the WFA Junior Basketball Team. He was one of the youngsters who organized the recent Youthfest. He doesn't speak Filipino but hopefully the WFA Tagalog classes and his determination to learn will make him good at it someday. This blog entry was written with the help of his friend, Angela Valencia.