Through steady action, we will ensure a bright future for the Filipino people.
Protecting our Rights
Pioneering Social and Behavior Change (SBC) to promote positive human rights behaviors in the Philippines
The Initiative for Advancing Community Transformation (I-ACT) is a USAID-funded project implemented by The Asia Foundation that aims to promote public interest and citizen engagement in support of human rights in geographic priority areas and key audience segments in the country.
Using behavioral science, we unpack Filipinos’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices on human rights to discover innovative ways to prompt rights-seeking, rights-affirming, and rights-claiming behaviors.
The I-ACT Project is the first program of its scale that systematically uses SBC to increase support for human rights across diverse target segments of the Filipino public — through diagnosing human rights problems, prototyping behavioral interventions and campaigns, and institutionalizing successful prototypes.
WHO WE ARE
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the world’s premier international development agency and a catalytic actor driving development results. USAID leads international development and humanitarian efforts to save lives, reduce poverty, strengthen democratic governance and help people progress beyond assistance.
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the world’s premier international development agency and a catalytic actor driving development results. USAID leads international development and humanitarian efforts to save lives, reduce poverty, strengthen democratic governance and help people progress beyond assistance.
OUR APPROACH
In I-ACT, we use a strategy of behavioral science-backed Diagnosis, Prototyping, and Institutionalization to fully understand Filipinos’ appreciation for human rights and meaningfully engage them in efforts to protect civil and political rights.
Diagnosis
Through in-depth research, we diagnose societal views and challenges to the exercise of rights. We use various qualitative and quantitative methodologies to probe the awareness, attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors of different audience segments when it comes to human rights.
Prototyping
After diagnosing, we test behavioral interventions to convey persuasive messages and inspire actions to promote rights. We do rapid, small-scale, quick and dirty prototyping of SBC interventions to see which ones work and which ones don’t.
Institutionalization
Among the prototypes, we institutionalize promising and successful ones by scaling these up through our partner organizations to reach our target audiences—building the capacities of civil society to embark on and sustain new approaches to human rights advocacy.
OUR TARGET AREAS AND AUDIENCES
I-ACT strategically engages the “moveable middle,” or groups of Filipinos that we believe are critical to shifting overall public attitudes on human rights. Applying parameters on key demographic factors, accessibility, and presence of human rights organizations, we focus our SBC campaigns on the following target audience segments and geographic areas:
PRIORITY TARGET AUDIENCE SEGMENTS
PROSPECTIVE TARGET AUDIENCE SEGMENTS
Internet Users
Mothers
Class C
Relatives of Migrant Workers
Gen Z
Millennials
Workers
Boomers
Central Luzon
CALABARZON
Western Visayas
Central Visayas
Northern Mindanao
CARAGA
OUR PARTNERS
In order to reach our target audiences and areas, we engage and collaborate with a diverse group of traditional and new partners, human rights coalitions, and communities working on the ground through four initiatives:
