Pru Life UK ramps up its recruitment efforts to empower ambitious individuals from all walks of life to build a long-lasting business with the leading life insurer.

Through a series of Build Your Business (BYB) sessions—held online and in person in key cities across the country—seasoned PRU business builders share their success stories and tips to encourage attendees to pursue their own business goals.

“By choosing Pru Life UK, aspiring financial advisors can be confident that they are backed by the #1 life insurer in the country with strong market presence and solid financial results,” said Marylin Detalla-Averia, Chief Agency Officer of Pru Life UK.

The company ranks number one in the life insurance industry in the Philippines, garnering the highest New Business Annual Premium Equivalent based on the Insurance Commission’s report as of 31 December 2023.

“Our financial advisors are provided with all the support they need to help build their business. They have access to digital tools, development programs, hip offices, and attractive rewards and incentives with unlimited earning potential. This allows them to be their own boss and live their ideal lifestyle while helping clients achieve theirs.”

Celebration of success with #BuildYourPRUBusiness

While BYB sessions are held year-round, the company leads an energetic approach to recruitment this May.

Themed Paint the Town Red: It’s PRUFiesta time, Recruitment Never Stops!, BYB sessions will be held in  Metro Manila (Makati, Ortigas, QC), Pampanga (Clark, Sta. Rosa), South (Alabang, Lipa), North (Baguio), and VisMin (Cebu, Davao, CDO).

Attendees will receive mentorship on becoming a business builder with Pru Life UK’s 40,000-agency force, the largest in the industry.

A virtual BYB session will happen on May 22 featuring “Pambansang Wealth Coach” Chinkee Tan, who will talk about financial management and business development, further highlighting the importance of financial planning and empowering entrepreneurial mindset.

Pru Life UK also holds its weekly Facebook live Q&A sessions for budding and experienced business builders. Held every Thursday at 7:00 p.m., these online sessions offer a glimpse into the world of financial advisors. 

Seeking a meaningful and rewarding business opportunity? Visit bit.ly/JoinPRU2024 to join Pru Life UK’s BYB sessions.

Bonifacio Art Foundation, Inc. (BAFI) and the United States Agency for International Development have joined forces to bring you a two-part biodiversity special of MIND S-COOL TV as well as a traveling Biodiversity Crisis Escape Room (BCER). Both projects serve to innovatively highlight the critical concepts of “roles” and “collaboration” in addressing the biodiversity crisis as well as the “measures” of the values, not only monetary, that we should all consider living with nature.

BCER is the first, traveling, experiential, immersive space, made up of 3 main rooms that will stand for the biodiversity crisis. The goal is for the participants to escape the crisis TOGETHER by helping one another realize and fulfill their roles. BCER will be hosted by BAFI’s The Mind Museum right after its opening at the museum on May 22 and will travel to host venues in Subic (Harbor Point, June15), Puerto Princesa (Robinson’s Mall, June 29) and Davao (Abreeza Mall, July 27) to enjoin participants who include – legislators, enforcers, regulators as well as community leaders – including cultural leaders AND local flora and fauna as well in the form of life-sized moving puppets, manned by professional puppeteers. It will also welcome the general public to experience this very unique and meaningful escape room on the dates mentioned.

Inside BCER, participants will take on roles that they would randomly pick. They will enter 3 connected rooms that they could only escape from if they understand what needs to be done and that they work together. The challenges they will face in each room are closely tied to realizing the “Mga Sukat ng Kalikasan” (measures/values of nature) in order to escape the biodiversity crisis. The experience will be facilitated so it will mimic the real human conversations and actions that need to happen in decision-making involving our natural heritage in which we all share in terms of not just benefits but also responsibilities. 

The 2-part biodiversity special of MIND S-COOL TV, the #1 science show across all channels^[1] is a TV version of BCER fleshing out a narrative that will involve our main questers as well as non-human “players” who will be called to help out since MIND S-COOL has been held hostage by the biodiversity crisis. They will experience being trapped in the rooms together with other characters, including life-sized puppets that represent non-humans such as flora, fauna, habitats, abiotic elements giving nature a “voice”. The story of this special 2-part can be summarized as “all life is embedded in nature and we need to realize its many values because if we don’t, the quality of our interconnected lives will be degraded.”  Part 1 of this special will air on May 26, 11 am and replayed at 4:30 PM on OnePh Channel on Cignal while part 2 will air the week after. These will be followed by replays for 6 weeks.

Kathy Wachala, Chief of Party for USAID’s Sustainable Interventions for Biodiversity, Oceans and Landscapes (SIBOL) project, says: “This partnership with BAFI to do BCER and MIND S-COOL TV enabled us to roll-out a very powerful way for stakeholders to internalize their actual roles and work together to come up with solutions to the biodiversity crisis.” Maria Isabel Garcia, Managing Director/Curator of BAFI, also comments on the project, saying, “We are so inspired by the kind of partnership we have with USAID SIBOL since it allowed us to recruit very imaginative ways of engagement for science to serve life, biodiversity.”

We can all escape the biodiversity crisis if we understand that all lives are interconnected and that we all work together, now.

To know more about the USAID SIBOL project and its interventions, you may send an email to info@ph-sibol.org.

Mind S-Cool TV and Biodiversity Crisis Escape Room were conceived and created by the Bonifacio Art Foundation, Inc., the creator and operator of The Mind Museum and the BGC Arts Center.

To know more, or if you wish to know how you can support mind s-cool and the other projects of the Bonifacio Art Foundation, send an inquiry to: mindscool@bafi.org.ph, inquiry@themindmuseum.org or info@bgcartscenter.org.

[1] According to the latest Nielsen Ratings Survey

A single dose of the measles jab is up to 2.6 times more likely to be completely ineffective in children born by C-section, compared to those born naturally. This is because the failure of the vaccine means that the child’s immune system does not produce antibodies to fight against measles infection, so they remain susceptible to the disease.

This is according to a study, “Birth by C-section more than doubles odds of measles vaccine failure”, that appeared in Nature Microbiology journal.

For thus study, the researchers used data from previous studies of over 1,500 children in Hunan, China, which included blood samples taken every few weeks from birth to the age of 12. This allowed them to see how levels of measles antibodies in the blood change over the first few years of life, including following vaccination.

The researchers found that 12% of children born via caesarean section had no immune response to their first measles vaccination, as compared to 5% of children born by vaginal delivery. This means that many of the children born by C-section did still mount an immune response following their first vaccination.

Measles is a highly infectious disease, and even low vaccine failure rates can significantly increase the risk of an outbreak. A second measles jab was found to induce a robust immunity against measles in C-section children.

A potential reason for this effect is linked to the development of the infant’s gut microbiome – the vast collection of microbes that naturally live inside the gut. Other studies have shown that vaginal birth transfers a greater variety of microbes from mother to baby, which can boost the immune system.

“We’ve discovered that the way we’re born – either by C-section or natural birth – has long-term consequences on our immunity to diseases as we grow up,” said Professor Henrik Salje in the University of Cambridge​’s Department of Genetics, joint senior author of the report.

He added: “We know that a lot of children don’t end up having their second measles jab, which is dangerous for them as individuals and for the wider population. Infants born by C-section are the ones we really want to be following up to make sure they get their second measles jab, because their first jab is much more likely to fail.”

An increasing number of women around the world are choosing to give birth by caesarean section. “With a C-section birth, children aren’t exposed to the mother’s microbiome in the same way as with a vaginal birth. We think this means they take longer to catch up in developing their gut microbiome, and with it, the ability of the immune system to be primed by vaccines against diseases including measles,” said Salje.

Two doses of the measles jab are needed for the body to mount a long-lasting immune response and protect against measles. According to the World Health Organisation,in 2022 only 83% of the world’s children had received one dose of measles vaccine by their first birthday – the lowest since 2008.

Salje said: “Vaccine hesitancy is really problematic, and measles is top of the list of diseases we’re worried about because it’s so infectious.”

Measles is one of the world’s most contagious diseases, spread by coughs and sneezes. It starts with cold-like symptoms and a rash, and can lead to serious complications including blindness, seizures, and death. Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, there were major measles epidemics every few years causing an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.