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Tacloban City, Leyte – As part of the continued services for women who are still staying in evacuation camps in Typhoon Yolanda-hit Eastern Visayas,  the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), recently conducted a training on managing women’s concerns during emergencies or disasters dubbed as “Women-Friendly Space (WFS) Management”. The training aims to enhance the capacity of WFS facilitators in the evacuation camps and staff of the Local Social Welfare and Development Offices in the region on managing WFS and facilitating information sharing with displaced women.

WFS addresses the specific needs of women affected by disasters as it provides more systematic, organized and gender-responsive way of delivering services. This is a special place for women in evacuation centers where they can have access to a myriad of services such as psychosocial support, reproductive health, cash-for-work, awareness sessions, and life skills training, among others.

The participating WFS facilitators came from the evacuation centers located at the Astrodome and at the Leyte National High School in this city, the Oval Tent in Tanauan, and in Brgy. San Roque, Tolosa.

DSWD-Social Marketing Service Director Joel Espejo gave the closing remarks where he emphasized that women and children are “the most vulnerable sectors” and they usually bear the brunt of disasters, thus, “being sensitive to their needs is important to help them cope with their situation.”
Currently, there a total of nine WFS in the province. ###