DSWD trains gov't engineers on Kalahi infra operations

By Rachelle M. Nessia

DUMAGUETE CITY, Sept 10 (PIA) -- The regional office of Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Cebu gathered over 70 engineers from local government units (LGU) in Western, Central and Eastern Visayas for an inter-regional training on the implementation parameters of Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan – Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) program. 

Kalahi-CIDSS is a core poverty alleviation program of the national government carried out by DSWD in partnership with identified LGUs. 

"It is designed to empower communities by honing their capacities to analyze their local situation, identify community needs and implement small scale community projects in partnership with their LGUs," a statement from DSWD-7 said. 

The weeklong training was dubbed: "Inter-Regional Water System, Roads and Bridges Construction, Operation and Maintenance Training of the Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan – Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS)." 

It leveled off with the Kalahi-implementing LGUs on the design of the poverty alleviation projects in their towns. 

During the training, the participating engineers brought with them site validation reports and actual survey data on the infrastructure needs in their communities, which are results of a participatory situational analysis that were earlier conducted in their areas. 

DSWD-7 Director Ma. Evelyn Macapobre, in her welcome address, quoted DSWD Sec. Dinky Soliman's 3Rs, namely: Rigorous, Realistic and Responsive approaches that she said are needed to be considered in planning small or big-scale infrastructure. 

Macapobre said that community project should address people's needs. 

"In order to attain that, engineers would need to go back and refer to the PSA results of their communities done in the early part of the social preparation stage of the project," she said. 

DSWD, in the same statement, disclosed that in the Kalahi-CIDSS scaled-up operation, the project aims to ensure that the community projects are carefully designed and implemented to serve and respond to the needs of the community. 

"In the past, implementation of Kalahi-CIDSS, water systems, road projects and construction of bridges comprised more than 50 percent of the total community projects nationwide," the press statement said. 

There are currently 47 towns in Visayas implementing the program. Said towns have a poverty incidence rate of 33.33 percent or higher. 

Of the total, 25 municipalities are located in the island-provinces of Bohol, Negros Oriental and Siquijor. (RMN-PIA Negros Oriental with reports from Simeon Remata III)