Cagayan de Oro–The Department of Social Welfare and Development conducted a ten-day Training of Trainors for its newly hired employees under KALAHI CIDSS-National Community Driven Development Program (KC-NCDDP), held here last September 22 to October 2, 2014. The objective of the activity was to orient, train and equip the new staff regarding information pertaining to the concepts and rationale of the said program.
The KC-NCDDP is the scaling up of the Kapit –Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS), one of the national government’s flagship programs of the national government for poverty reduction.

The participants were the Area Coordinators, Municipal Monitors, Deputy Area Coordinators, Municipal Financial Analyst and Community Facilitators which comprise the Area Coordinating Teams (ACTs) or Municipal Coordinating Teams (MCTs). The training discussed the whereabouts of KC-NCDDP in the context of development, the roles and functions of ACT ot MCT as counterparts and the correlation of each position to other ones.

The KC-NCDDP uses the Community-Driven Development (CDD) approach to address poverty. Using this strategy, it will empower ordinary citizens to actively and directly participate in local governance by identifying their own community needs, planning, implementing and monitoring projects to respond local scarcity issues and concern communally. The program currently covers 367 of the poorest municipalities in 12 regions. This number will increase to 847 in 16 regions within the year.

In the culmination program DSWD Field Office X regional director Atty. Araceli Solamillo challenged the participants to make sure that they will work as a team, encouraging collaboration or partnership with other stakeholders, conveying as well their commitments and innovations in helping attaining the goal of the project.

Written by Mario Luis Arquiza