Officials from the World Bank (WB) are confident that the grant provided to the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) Kapit Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) program was spent well after hearing stories of community volunteers on how they worked together in improving their communities.
They have heard these stories during their visit in the villages implementing the Kalahi-CIDSS program in the town of San Antonio in Quezon Province last November 5, 2015.
According to DSWD Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Juliano-Soliman, the said visit aimed to let the WB officials directly see the impact of the program to the local communities.
“These are the stories behind the numbers and figures that we usually see in the reports. The stories also demonstrate if our main objective is being met, which is to empower the people to work for change,” said Sec. Soliman.
The Kalahi-CIDSS is a poverty reduction program of the DSWD that aims to empower ordinary citizens to engage in the local development process by identifying and implementing need-responsive projects for their communities.
The WB, one of the development partners of the Kalahi-CIDSS, has allocated PhP115.36 Million grant for the implementation of 197 sub-projects this 2015 in Quezon Province alone. Projects include farm-to-market roads, health centers, school buildings, water system, and electrification among others.
The stories of community volunteers
Judilyn Encomio, a community volunteer from Brgy. San Jose in the said town, shared the importance of voicing out opinions and telling what the community really needs.
Their community decided to implement a community center sub-project worth PhP1.57 Million. The said project can also be used as evacuation center in times of disasters.
“Sa dami ng bagyong nagdaan, wala kaming ligtas na lugar na napupuntahan. Ito ang kailangan namin at binigay ko ang opinyon ko. Sa Kalahi-CIDSS, naramdaman kong mahalaga ang boses ko. At heto na nga, napakinggan ako,” said Encomio.
On the other hand, Nestor Marabe from Brgy. Callejon shared that participation is their key for successfully implementing their farm-to-market road with spillway sub-project. By working together, he said that they will soon finish concreting their village road and constructing the spillway, which costs PhP1.89 Million.
“Mas madali na naming madadala ang produkto namin sa sentro dahil hindi na magiging maputik ang daan kapag umulan. Makakapasok na rin nang ligtas ang mga bata sa school,” said Marabe.
Effective implementation
According to Antonio Henrique Pinherio Silveria, WB Executive Director, these stories of residents are enough proof that the community-driven principle of the program is already instilled to the local people.
On the other hand, WB Executive Director for United States Matthew McGuirre said that they have learned a lot from the local people which they can use for coming up with recommendation on other programs they support and other future studies.
“We now know first-hand how the grant provided to the Kalahi-CIDSS program was utilized for and by the communities. Hearing their success stories is enough inspiration for us to work more for the people,” said McGuirre. #