Butuan City –The Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan – Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS)-Caraga is ensuring that its field workers who are implementing the Community-Driven Development (CDD) program of the Department are ready and competent to carry out the necessary actions to make the program operations successful.
With this, an eight-day activity dubbed as Refresher Course Training for the Area Coordinating Teams (ACTs) on the Community-Empowerment Activity Cycle (CEAC) has been conducted in two batches (1st Batch – August 9-17, 2015 and 2nd batch – August 19-27, 2015) here in Butuan Cit y.
The ACTs are comprised of area coordinators, technical facilitators (engineers), community empowerment facilitators, and municipal finance analysts.
Regional Director Minda B. Brigoli of DSWD-Caraga emphasized that it is the responsibility of the Regional Program Management Office (RPMO) to ensure that all workers are competent and able. She said that it is necessary to continue coaching workers to ensure that they will be able to meet the demands of the program implementation at the field level.
“We will continue to enrich the knowledge and skills of our field workers. Refresher course trainings will deepen the understanding of our workers on the different operational systems we have in our program implementation.”Brigoli said.
The refresher course training is conducted to ensure a smooth transition for the second cycle implementation, especially that there are a lot of municipalities implementing Kalahi-CIDSS who will undergo transition process from utilizing the Accelerated CEAC to the Regular, Standard CEAC.
“We have been very successful with the first cycle, and hopefully, the second cycle implementation would also be smooth-sailing. This will be achieved if we have competent workers”, Brigoli added.
The utilization of the Accelerated CEAC was in response to the devastation of Yolanda in 2013. The classified 377 Areas (Poor municipalities who are Yolanda Affected), and 177 Areas (Non-poor municipalities who are Yolanda affected) utilized the Accelerated CEAC to fast-track planning, fund disbursement and utilization, and the implementation of sub-projects to heed to the needs of the community. With the Accelerated CEAC, all barangays were able to receive funds for their community sub-projects.
As for the Standard CEAC, which has already been utilized by the classified 293 Areas (Poor Municipalities not affected by Yolanda), the CEAC process is more distinguished, and barangays will undergo prioritization activities on who will receive funds for their community sub-projects. This will be the utilized in all areas for the second cycle.
The regional management hopes that the longer the ACT are part of the program implementation, they will be able to possess the necessary skills and knowledge essential to their functions, and most importantly, develop a positive attitude in accomplishing the goals of the program and the Department. ###(Social Marketing Unit/DSWD Field Office Caraga)
