Poder project closes with high hopes
By Keneath John O. Bolisay
BUTUAN CITY, Apr. 6 (PIA) -- In their continued
pursuit of improving the plight of poor communities in Caraga region, the
Spanish government-funded anti-poverty project of the Department of Social
Welfare and Development (DSWD), PODER, successfully wrapped up its seventh year
implementation of a grant worth P14,605,205.00.
Using a community-driven development (CDD)
approach, Poder focused on the provision of basic health and education services
in three municipalities in the region especially targeted to beneficiaries of
the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) or the government’s
conditional-cash transfer program.
The municipalities of Sta. Josefa, Agusan del
Sur; San Agustin, Surigao del Sur; and Tubajon, Province of Dinagat Islands
received grants from the Spanish government through the Agencia EspaΓ±ola de
Cooperacion Internacional para el Desarollo (AECID) with 14 sub-projects or
infrastructures erected by the communities in less than a year.
In one of the sub-project turn-over ceremonies,
Surigao del Sur provincial administrator Efren Rivas expressed his appreciation
to the project because “it does not only provide the basic social services in
the communities but also nurture the minds of the volunteers” through trainings
and workshops that it provided.
Regional director for DSWD Caraga Dr. Minda B.
Brigoli said that Poder is a testament that the government’s vision of
improving local governance and enjoining every citizen in the development is
reaping its results through increased citizen participation that is “being
lauded by the international community.”
“The battle has ended and the reward is at
hand,” Rogelio C. Garcia, a high school teacher and a community volunteer,
proudly shared this to dignitaries and officials for them to hear his story of
change.
“First, I am a teacher and all I wanted was a
sub-project that will cater the needs of my students. When I volunteered for
Poder, I knew I had to sacrifice and render extra time to realize our
three-classroom high school building,” Garcia added.
“The days when my students would lose interest
in listening to my lectures because of incessant dripping of rainwater inside
our dilapidated classroom are gone. We are now enjoying a new classroom with
floors for a castle and a washroom with clean, running water,” Garcia said.
Poder operates on the principles of citizen
empowerment, participatory governance, demand-responsiveness, administrative
autonomy, greater downward accountability, and enhanced local capacity.
“Development should start at the bottom,
ordinary citizens steering themselves toward empowerment demonstrates the kind
of people we would always like to work for and the government is their partner
to make a change and make that happen,” Brigoli said. (DSWD-13/PIA-Caraga)
Kalahi-CIDSS to be implemented in Butuan
By Keneath John O. Bolisay
BUTUAN CITY, Apr. 6 (PIA) -- One of the biggest
poverty reduction projects of the Philippine government, the Kapit-Bisig Laban
sa Kahirapan – Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services
(Kalahi-CIDSS) will be bringing its war on poverty to this city in early April
of this year.
Administered by the Department of Social Welfare
and Development (DSWD), Kalahi-CIDSS is an anti-poverty project using the
community-driven development (CDD) approach by empowering ordinary citizens to
actively and directly participate in local governance by identifying their own
community needs, planning, implementing, and monitoring projects to address
local poverty issues collectively.
DSWD Caraga assistant regional director for
operations and regional project manager for Kalahi-CIDSS Mita G. Lim said
Butuan City was identified by the national office to pilot test the urban CDD
building on the success of the implementation of the project in the rural
areas.
Lim added that two barangays, Brgy. Pagatpatan
and Brgy. Doongan were identified to receive the grant based on the 2009
National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) survey wherein a considerable
number of the poorest households in the city reside.
“One of the biggest lessons from our
implementation of Kalahi-CIDSS is that one cannot base development in
modernization alone, one must look into the deprivation of the people in terms
of their access to basic services such as the presence of health and
educational facilities and ownership of assets to allow sustained income out of
existing resources in the community,” Lim said.
The urban CDD will be funded by both World Bank
for infrastructure projects and the Japanese government through the Japan
Social Development Fund (JSDF) for community livelihood projects.
A grant of one million pesos will be allocated
to each barangay and an additional Php100,000 will be allotted for
community-based implementation support for training and administrative costs.
Moreover, innovations were also integrated to
the existing implementing mechanism of Kalahi-CIDSS. DSWD regional director,
Dr. Minda B. Brigoli said that for urban CDD, there will be a strong
coordination with members of the civil society organizations (CSOs) operating
in the city to act as members of the Kalahi-CIDSS technical working group
(TWG), facilitators for community volunteers’ capacity building activities, and
as independent, third party monitoring groups.
The implementation of Kalahi-CIDSS in Butuan
City will see a convergence of the three core social protection programs of
DSWD, namely: Pantawid Pamilya, Sustainable Livelihood Program, and
Kalahi-CIDSS; inter-agency collaboration and program coordination in urban
areas; and national government agency (NGA) – local government unit (LGU)
collaboration on technical assistance, resource augmentation, and service
delivery in poor urban communities. (DSWD-13/PIA-Caraga)
