Tacloban City, September 22, 2014 — Three hundred forty-one community workers of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan Comprehensive Integrated Delivery of Social Services–National Community Driven-Development Program (KALAHI CIDSS–NCDDP) Field Office Eight attended this week the first of a series of NCDDP roll-out trainings for Area Coordinating Teams (ACTs). The said five-day training started September 19 and ended Tuesday, September 23, 2014.
“The roll-out training primarily aims to capacitate the ACTs who will be the prime movers in the Local Government Unit’s engagement specifically in the implementation of the Accelerated Community Empowerment Activity Cycle (CEAC). The real essence of the accelerated CEAC is to create resilient communities and help them build back better”,Natividad Sequito, Regional Program Coordinator stated during the opening ceremony.
The training utilizes activities such as simulations, group discussions, individual exercises and lectures based on the framework and mechanism of KC-NCDDP structured to equip both new and existing field workers. .It covers the first two stages of the accelerated CEAC process under the NCDDP’s Disaster Response Operations Procedure (DROP). The first batch was divided into 11 classes, held simultaneously in the cities of Tacloban, Ormoc, Calbayog and Southern, Leyte.
In an interview, DSWD Regional Director, Nestor Ramos, explained that CEAC is the implementation strategy for the operationalization of the community development processes and interventions of the KALAHI-CIDSS. “CEAC, which is grounded on the principles of participatory, transparency, accountability, is the guide by which KALAHI-CIDSS processes are actualized, utilizing the Community Driven Development (CDD) approach, “ Ramos added.
Said Ramos,“the NCDDP shall accelerate the implementation of the CEAC process to effectively respond to the immediate needs of communities relative to the degree of damage and devastation caused by the typhoon in their municipality.”
Eastern Visayas has the largest coverage of KALAHI CIDSS-NCDDP in the country thus requiring 1, 881 highly trained staff ready for deployment this quarter in order to obligate the P1.6 billion funds intended for sub-project implementation.
The KALAHI CIDSS–NCDDP, a poverty alleviation program of the government which seeks for community empowerment, is a national expansion of the Community-Driven Development strategy that has been tried and proven effective in KALAHI-CIDSS for almost 11 years. The NCDDP covers municipalities that are considered poor based on set criteria. However, due to the destruction brought about by Typhoon Yolanda in Eastern Visayas, all of 136 municipalities with 3,705 barangays in the region will be covered, regardless of poverty incidence.
The remaining three batches, each with 11 classes, will commence on September 27 to October 1, October 5-9, and October 13-17 respectively.#