#ForMindanao: An aid through community engagement

From the Philippine Information Agency (Apr 20): #ForMindanao: An aid through community engagement

KulturAKO is one of the six of the winning projects of #ForMindanao campaign that focus on livelihood and economic development of the community. Hammin Casan says the KulturAKO project is their initiative to revive the culture and at the same time, help OSY, internally displaced youth, and women weavers to start anew and have their own livelihood. (Zener R. Dumaguing/PIA-10)

The Marawi crisis has been a bell-ringing concern that lasted for quite a long time. In response to this, the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines made an effort to respond to the thirst for support by some Mindanao groups to lend a help to the victims.

Here, the birth of the second wave of #ForMindanao Conflict Response and Peacebuilding Grants happened. This campaign supports locally-led initiatives by awarding grants of up to P100,000 to projects that aim to contribute to the recovery from the Marawi crisis and the development of Mindanao.

The #ForMindanao campaign builds upon the belief that addressing the needs of conflict-affected communities in Mindanao requires a confluence of local and civil society initiatives that encourage engagement from local communities.

The grant competition is administered by Naawan HELPS, a U.S. exchange alumni-led civil society organization based in Northern Mindanao.

Many groups desired to win the grant competition but only a few were granted the chance. Out of the 30 proposals the #ForMindanao core team received, 13 projects were selected.

Johnson Badawi of the #ForMindanao core team said a clear understanding of the community needs and the appropriateness of the proposed intervention to the identified needs were among the considerations in selecting the best proposals.

We also looked into the feasibility of the monitoring and evaluation of the projects, the sustainability and replicability of the project, as well as the teamwork of the group and how they can mobilize partners in the community, Badawi said.

Six of the winning projects are into livelihood and economic development programs to alleviate unemployment and uplift socio-economic conditions of the community through livelihood activities for women and youth, capacity-building training on agriculture, production and entrepreneurship.

The projects are Fleet Farming for a Resilient Mindanao (FFfaRM), KulturAKO, Out-of-School Youth Farms for Mindanao (OSY-FM), Palapa sa Lumba, Sound Intervention for Young Advocates of Peace (SIYAP), and Small Entrepreneurs and Local Farmers (SELF) Sunday Market.

The other seven projects, namely: Acquiring Leadership Initiative for Valuable Education (ALIVE), Young Peace Advocates Camp (YPAC), Project MALAYA, PAG-USWAG, SPELL Peace, SPRING of Hope, and Training-Workshop for Teachers on the Teaching of Reading and Children’s Literature, were anchored on education, social mobilization, peace and stability, with the goal to capacitate the children, youth, teachers and communities to peace literacy, street law programs, Basic English, literature-based reading programs, and faith based approaches to peace-building.

“Our project S.P.R.I.N.G. of Hope, which stands for Strengthening the Potential Responsibility in the New Generation of Hope, caters to 25 youth, aged 15 to 18, enrolled in Iligan City National High School and its annexes who are directly affected by the Marawi siege,” said Project Director Wilhelma Sampaco.

The project aims to enhance and strengthen the youth’s knowledge on basic Philippine and Islamic laws. The series of seminars, workshops, and psychosocial support activities are to be conducted to illuminate the youth with knowledge on their rights and responsibilities in Philippine and Islamic Laws in the hope that they may be able to avoid and correct the ideologies that promote nothing but lawlessness and discrimination.

The KulturAKO is a livelihood training project of team MARINAW which gives economic opportunity to 20 students and five out-of-school youth (OSY) to build a social enterprise out of “landap”, a Meranao weaved cloth.

“Our team is named MARINAW, a Maranao term for clear, which means our intention to help is pure. Our KulturAKO (My Culture) project aims to create products such as wallets, flip covers, passport holders, and other things we can imagine out of the traditional weaved clothing. We will be training the youth on sewing, weaving and handicrafts making. We will also contact five women weavers and buy their landap. In this way, we can also help the women weavers whose livelihood were affected by the Marawi crisis,” said Hammin Casan.

“It is our initiative to revive the culture and, at the same time, help OSY, internally displaced youth, and women weavers to have their own livelihood and start anew,” he added.

Casan is grateful that #ForMindanao supports local initiatives that promote sustainable peace and development in each of the communities.

http://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1006892