Butuan City– The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Field Office Caraga through the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program-Regional Program Management Office conducted a Youth Development Session (YDS) held in Caraga State University-Ampayon campus on August 27, 2015.

Students’ Grants-in-Aid Program for Poverty Alleviation (SGPPA) and the Expanded SGPPA student-recipients actively participated in the half-day activity which was facilitated by the social welfare officers assigned in Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur.

Leo Cabiling, SGPPA scholar from the province of Surigao del Norte, expressed his sincere appreciation to the session and its methodology.

“YDS is a best avenue to learn and relearn ideas. Partly, this session serves a refresher-course to me specially that it is designed to measure our personal understanding to things around us and even reflect to ideas being discussed,” Cabiling said.

“Through YDS, we were able to know more about the Pantawid Pamilya and how it operates and its technical personnel in delivering the deserved social protection programs and services to us as scholars and to all its target clienteles,” he added.

In the session, the facilitators discussed about the topic entitled “Change: A Metamorphosis of a Person”. Also, Ms. Analiza Navia, OIC-RPC of the Pantawid Pamilya was tasked to do the deepening part of the activity and evaluated the participants on how far was their understanding and reflection about the topic discussed. Ms. Hanna Cunoi, SGPPA focal closed the activity by reminding the students to be inspired and continue to make efforts in studying to reach their dreams.

The SGP-PA is instituted by the government through Commission on Higher Education (CHED)  in partnership with the DSWD and Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) as a long term mechanism with full commitment to breaking the vicious poverty cycle afflicting the poor but deserving Filipino youth and their families.

Specifically, SGP-PA aims to increase the number of graduates in higher education among poor households, enable these graduates to attain employment in high-value added occupations, uplift their family’s standard of living, and contribute productively to national development (###SocialMarketingUnitDSWDFieldOfficeCaraga###).