CEDAW/C/PHI/5-6 child abuse. In coordination with the social welfare and tourism departments and the media, the education department organized Bantay Eskwela (school watch) in secondary schools in 1998 and Bicol Bantay Bata (Child Watch) in 1999, disseminated information materials and held a forum on the portrayal of girl children in media. The National Youth Commission organized "Youthspeak" to reach a covenant with media practitioners to develop a more responsive media environment reflective of the youth’s visions and aspirations and supportive of their well-being. Youthspeak reached over 100 students/youth leaders and media practitioners. The Commission also formed the Bantay Cinema Youth Network to serve as monitoring team in various localities. c. The social welfare department’s project on Assistance to Lolas (grandmothers) in Crisis Situation seeks to rebuild the self-esteem of former comfort women through the provision of psychological interventions and financial assistance to meet their basic needs. This ended in December 2002. d. Local governments and communities can also learn from a replication guide that the Local Government Support Programme, a project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), has published to help local governments fashion their response to violence against women. Entitled Freedom from Fear: Establishing Quick Response Team for Violence against Women (LGSP 2003), the guide consists of a set of manuals drawn from the QRT experiences of DAWN in Negros Occidental, and also of COMBAT-VAW, WCC, and other community-based anti-VAW efforts. In so doing, Freedom from Fear offers a wide array of possible tools and models that local government units can study and learn from. NGO Programs in VAWC 222. The NGO community could be credited not only for raising domestic violence as a public issue, but also for providing services long before government recognized it as so. Many NGO community-based programs to assist women victims of violence have now been adopted and are being replicated by national government agencies and local governments. Among these is COMBAT-VAW (Community-based Approach to Violence Against Women), which was pioneered by the Women’s Legal Bureau and HASIK, and which the local government of Quezon City has adapted. Lihok Pilipina’s Bantay Banay (or “community watch”) is the backbone of Cebu City’s anti-domestic violence program. 223. SIBOL, an alliance of nine women’s groups and NGOs, continues to actively push for womenrelated legislation. They have successfully pushed for the passage of the Anti-Sexual Harassment, Anti-Rape and Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children laws. The latter law was based on their proposed bill on anti-abuse of women in intimate relationships. SIBOL members include Women’s Crisis Center (WCC), Center for Legislative Development (CLD), Women’s Legal Bureau (WLB), Womenhealth, Institute for Social Studies and Action (ISSA), Women’s Education, Development Productivity and Research Organization, Inc. (WEDPRO), MAKALAYA, and Sarilaya. 224. The Women’s Crisis Center (WCC), the first crisis center for victims/survivors of VAW in the Philippines, launched its National Network Family Violence Prevention Program in 1997 in 18 cities and municipalities all over the country. It is a community-based strategy of preparing 69