By Julianne Edon Gabis

Upholding its mission of providing holistic healthcare products and services to enrich lives of the communities it serves, Unilab Corporation, the Philippines’ largest pharmaceutical company, continues its commitment to build a healthier nation through the Unilab Foundation. 

As the corporate social responsibility arm of Unilab, Unilab Foundation, Inc. aspires to be the nation’s “leading foundation focused on health” and the most trusted choice for projects and advocacies related to the Filipino well-being. 

Helping one child at a time

Since its launch in 2011, the Unilab Foundation (ULF) has developed various programs and solutions to enable health and education access for communities that need them most. Its first program, Play It Forward (PIF), took off in 2012 offering developmental and therapeutic play intervention for children in areas hit by a recent calamity.

In celebration of the National Children’s Month on November last year, Play It Forward, together with its partners-play champions, kicked off the Play Advocacy Week 2018 at The Mind Museum. The program is grounded on the belief that every child has the right to play, and it is a vital element for their mental health and holistic development. 

In depressed areas disrupted by a disaster, child survivors are often deprived of access to play. Play It Forward combines play spaces and curriculum to enhance the therapeutic benefits of child play with the help of psychological experts, ensuring its effectiveness and sustainability. 

ULF expanded its scope from the initial play space in a barangay in Cagayan de Oro City to address other regions with highly neglected healthcare services and help the pediatric patients and children devastated by Tropical Storm Sendong. With 500 volunteers for this program, more than 10 thousand children have now been given access to play spaces and psychosocial support.

Project Inclusion

Given the right conditions and opportunities, Persons with Disability can be valuable members of a workforce. This is the belief that Project Inclusion advocates. Through providing access-to-work models and guides that help support the transition of employers and job-seekers, Project Inclusion proves that hiring PWDs is beneficial not only to the person but to the employer as well. 

Since it kicked off in 2013, Project Inclusion has grown beyond its initial mission, engaging over 25 companies from different industries to hire Persons with Disability. Over 800 persons are given the opportunity to challenge the stigma in hiring PWDs, creating a culture of inclusion in all our communities.

Cultivating young ideas

Unilab Foundation is open to any innovative idea that may provide solutions towards a healthier Philippines. Through Ideas Positive, now on its ninth run, it calls on the Filipino youth from all over the archipelago to engage into crafting groundbreaking ideas and implement measures to address specific health issues in communities. 

Last year, a group of young health professionals who call themselves Team TeenPuyog, aimed to bring down the number of teenage pregnancy in a small town in Sarangani, where the highest number of teenage pregnancy incidents occurs. 

For six months, the group conducted the program they called “IDOLescesnt Matter (Motivate, Advocate, Testify, Teach, Empower, Relate).” They also successfully persuaded the local government of the area to institutionalize IDOLescent Matter. 

With these achievements, Team TeenPuyog secured their position as the grand champion for the 8th run of Ideas Positive of the Unilab Foundation.

Heads Up PH

Every Filipino deserves to be in an environment where mental health is given importance. This is what the Unilab Foundation firmly believes. Through Heads Up PH, ULF aims for improvement of access to mental healthcare and psychosocial support especially for children in depressed communities or schools.

Corresponding to the big need of interventions that address mental health issues of young Filipinos in the country, EDUC+ equips members of the academe, parents, and other members of the community with module-based training activities  to create an environment where mental health talk is mainstream and not stigmatized.