FAD’s roots can be traced to the Manila Center for Young Adults (MCYA), a multi-service youth center initiated in 1985 by the Philippine Center for Population and Development. The MCYA was created to provide adolescents and young adults with correct information, value formation/clarification and services on health and sexuality. Staffed by youth-friendly workers, the MCYA was a place outside the campus where teeners can openly discuss and confide issues and problems about growing up, relationships, sexuality, etc. At the same time, adolescents could hang out, play games, meet friends and talk about growing up concerns.

After operating as a youth center for 3 years, MCYA was transformed into a foundation now known as the Foundation for Adolescent Development, Inc. (FAD).

“Five things make FAD unique,” says Go, the foundation’s president. “First, it targets a very specific market of young people - those belonging to the 13-24 year age group. Second, its approach is oriented towards education and value formation. FAD is not a crisis center. Third, we focus on sexuality as a vital concern in the development stage of adolescence. Fourth, FAD is like an R&D shop, we look for ways to demonstrate what interventions work effectively in guiding young people. Finally, we emphasize the role of young people in helping their fellow teeners”

FAD’s programs and services are designed to assist the youth in the school, in the community, in the workplace, in the internet including those in difficult situations such as the street.

Aurora Silayan-Go, FAD President notes the statistics which define the framework of the Foundation’s programs:

• 1/5 or 16.5 million Filipinos belong to 15-24 years old age group or adolescents
• 30% of all births belong to age 15-24
• 25% are already mothers at age 20
• 16% of 400,000 induced abortions per year are by teeners
• 62% of reported STIs belong to ages 15-24
• 62% of newly reported HIV-AIDS infections belongs to 15-24 years old
What these and other figures show is that Filipino teenagers are having sexual relationships for which they are unprepared. They lack the knowledge, skills and social support needed to avoid the ill effects of premarital sex. Even more important, their values are confused. To deal with this, other adolescent programs might stress “safe sex” as a response, emphasizing the use of “barrier mechanisms” such as condoms, especially when dealing with a sexually active target group. FAD takes a different approach. It believes that young people should be encouraged to review their values, attitudes, situations and relationships which may lead to unplanned and early sexual activities. According to Cecilia C. Villa, the Foundation’s executive director, “we believe that prevention is the best cure, and we give teenagers the information they need to make correct decisions.”  ROOTS   The Foundation for Adolescent Development, Inc. (FAD) caters to a very specific market of adolescents and young adults aged 13-24. Being in a very precarious period of adolescence, they experience dramatic changes ranging from the physical, emotional, psychological, social and cultural. During this time, the young person is in search of his/her identity, asserting independence, getting attracted to the opposite sex and searching for life’s meaning and direction. Questions are posed…who am i? Where am I going? How do I get there?
Through the years, FAD has evolved a wide range of strategies and approaches that emphasize the preventive aspect of young people’s health and sexuality needs and concerns: information-education, counseling, youth-to-youth intervention, behavioral skills modeling, entertainment for education, referral to other agencies and provision of select medical services.   LOCATION The Foundation for Adolescent Development holds office at the heart of Manila’s “University Belt”, a cluster of more than 20 schools with a total student population exceeding 100,000. Located at a historic neighborhood, FAD is only a short walk away from the Plaza del Carmen fronting the spires of the neo-Gothic Basilica de San Sebastian. Finished in 1891, San Sebastian Church is Asia’s only all-steel cathedral and is considered a national historical landmark.

FOUNDATION FOR ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, INC.
1066 Remedios St. cor San Bartolome Malate, Manila 1004

Telephone/Fax Numbers: (632) 400-1827 and 525-0428
Email address: fadinc@pldtdsl.net
Website: www.teenfad.ph

* As of November 26, 2007.