Education
BTG believes that an empowered nation starts from an educated public; hence, education remains as a crucial factor in unleashing human potential. Specifically, the organization recognizes that education takes various forms to cater to different social circumstances such as students’ financial capacity, conduciveness of learning environments, and quality of learning resources. Given this, BTG creates more avenues – capacity building, youth corps, skills and livelihood trainings, language and volunteer work camps – where marginalized communities can access essential educational services, resources, and experiences, allowing them to garner knowledge and skills that suit them. In the same note, the organization promotes the value of non-formal methods of education in inculcating such values, allowing wider audiences to gain opportunities for them to hone their skills, harness their potentials, and gain wider views of the world. Moreover, volunteerism goes to the center of the organization’s educational agenda. Therefore, youth networks are encouraged to promulgate the culture of volunteering as a means of exploring one’s abilities, while enabling oneself as a force of change.
Environmental Sustainability
With the repercussions of anthropogenic activities being more apparent in both local and international scales, Bridging the Gaps sees the responsibility involved sectors have to fulfill in order to bring about lasting sustainable effects particularly in environmentally susceptible regions in the country. With this rationale, BTG sees itself as a dynamic team in spearheading sustainability values such as responsible tourism, smart agriculture, and multisectoral environmental strategies. BTG also seeks to engage further in devising activities such as small-scale organic farming, environmental awareness and communication campaigns, and environmental work camps where volunteers get to immerse themselves in the grassroots level to aid local sustainability efforts, all the while learning ecological values and cultural awareness absent in traditional educational methods. In the long run, the organization wishes to witness young people equipped with genuine appreciation, understanding, and concern for their environment and its natural resources.
Microfinance and Entrepreneurship
The organization recognizes that youth capacity spans to spectrums of economic opportunities, and that it may be honed should learning platforms- financial literacy trainings, entrepreneurship workshops, and livelihood skills building- be made accessible to individuals who want to acknowledge other financial possibilities. BTG seeks to empower the youth by inculcating skills and knowledge onto them that would help them gain financial foothold and understanding of social problems that may be addressed through profit-driven initiatives or social ventures. At length, this pillar aims to create more opportunities for youth to recognize their skills on devising their own opportunities to succeed socially and financially.
Culture and Heritage
With the goal of binding youths from different backgrounds, races, and ethnicities, it is in BTG’s priority to harmonize its youth network’s cultures to ultimately forge strong linkages based on cultural consciousness and diversity. The organization aims for a rich, sound, and dynamic interconnection among its youth members, extending such bond to the other sectors of modern day society. Through its burgeoning programs on peace advocacy, heritage work camps, and cultural shows/fares, BTG is on its way to be a prime example of how diversity enriches youth’s understanding of how the world functions and how differences on race, gender, and backgrounds do not make weak associations, but strong friendships that can also be used in siphoning opportunities to more young people. Essentially, BTG sees to it that culture and heritage are perceived by the youth more valuable than ever, given the events of modern day challenges.
BTG Philippines 