US exchange students in Mindanao ‘pass on’ governance training

From the Philippine News Agency (Mar 9): US exchange students in Mindanao ‘pass on’ governance training

A group of former exchange students to the United States from Mindanao have banded together to pass on to young community leaders from the island about the governance training they have learned.

The group calling itself United States Alumni for Institutional Reforms (US-AIR) has already conducted two training programs – one in 2015 for the environment and another one last week on governance.

The July 2015 training has netted 60 participants from all over the island. All of them have submitted project proposals relating to environmental concerns and were evaluated by the US-AIR for funding consideration from the United States Embassy.

“Their proposals are just micro-level ones to be implemented in the villages. But at least, they can jump-start awareness on whatever advocacies they are, whether on environmental or governance,” Jerlie Luis-Requerme, United States Alumni for Institutional Reforms coordinator, said.

Luis-Requerme, now serving as a judge serving on the municipal circuit trial court in Bukidnon, was a US exchange student grantee in 2012 when she was already practicing law.

After she returned a year later, she founded the United States Alumni for Institutional Reforms to help up and coming leaders in Mindanao.

Together with a dozen other exchange student alumni from Northern Mindanao, the US-AIR helped craft the syllabuses in their short-term trainings.

One of the trainees, a community organizer from Zamboanga Del Norte, said the training has done much to help him improve the voluntary services that he and his group has done in that province.

“I have learned a lot of things here, especially in community development and how to encourage the people to participate in governance in their respective villages by actively engaging not just the village officials, but involving the whole community,” Rancid Cszar Villano, one of the leaders of the Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation, said.

The Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation started as a movement to help children who used to swim to school in a farfetched village of Zamboanga City. The foundation is one of the groups that gets assistance from the United States Alumni for Institutional Reforms.

“I hope through the coordination of the United States Embassy, we will be able to help more organizations here in Mindanao as they assist the underprivileged in their respective communities for the betterment of society,” Ms. Luis-Requerme said.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=2&sid=&nid=2&rid=864751