Compostela, Compostela Valley – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) through Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan – Comprehesive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) and the Municipality of Compostela recently conducted a Municipal Talakayan.
With the theme “Managing and Learning Together towards Results”, the activity aimed to assess the implementation of Kalahi-CIDSS program in the municipality in the past six years.
In attendance were Compostela Mayor Lema P. Bolo, Vice Mayor Reynaldo Q. Castillo, Municipal Local Government Unit officials, Barangay Captains, and Kalahi-CIDSS community volunteers.
DSWD was represented by Kalahi-CIDSS Deputy Regional Program Manager Ma. Annabelle S. Jabla, Regional Community Development Specialist Nick Elvi Digol, Regional Finance Analyst Loudice Joyce Anas, and Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist Elvira Anduyan.
Kalahi-CIDSS input
“The purpose of this forum is to provide a venue for an organized dialogue among program implementers, community volunteers, and beneficiaries,” said Jabla.
Jabla added the Talakayan also aims to increase awareness of the local community on current development and plans in the municipality.
To date, the town has a total of 23 ongoing and 64 completed sub-projects built through Kalahi-CIDSS and its other modalities -PAyapa at MAsaganang PamayaNAn (PAMANA), Bottom-Up Budgeting (BUB), and Government of Australia-Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (GOA-DFAT).
In 2014, DSWD covered 7,399 families under Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, 4,650 through Sustainable Livelihood Program, and 18,656 families benefited from Kalahi-CIDSS sub-projects.
Vice Mayor Castillo said Kalahi-CIDSS has a huge contribution in the reduction of poverty incidence rate in Compostela. “It went down from 40.98% in 2003, to 27.03% in 2012. Indeed a big leap for this town.”
To add to the milestones, a Focused Group Discussion (FGD) was conducted to identify new initiatives on how to strengthen and effectively implement the program. This way, they get to identify problems in the grassroots and garner prospect solutions for long time problems.
Vice Mayor Castillo emphasized that, “Kalahi-CIDSS is proven to be effective since it prioritizes the needs of the community, and the community is the one who leads the implementation of the program. In fact, they plan to continue the legacy of the program. They said they have never seen their community this passionate about a project.”
Kalahi-CIDSS or Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services is one of DSWD’s core programs that aims to empower ordinary citizens to directly participate in local governance by identifying their community needs. (DSWD)