KALAHI-CIDSS:Government is Partnership

MALAPATAN, Sarangani (August 8, 2007) – President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's flagship anti-poverty program has been turning Sarangani's poor villages into development partners.

"I see here community volunteers working for their identified projects," Social Welfare Usec. Luwalhati Pablo told local officials and students in barangay Lun Padidu Tuesday (August 7).

Pablo was visiting projects under the Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (KALAHI-CIDSS) across Mindanao within the week.

Pablo formally opened a Home Economics, Livelihood and Technology Training Center at Lun Padidu National High School on Tuesday.

The training center is one of the self-help projects in Sarangani built through KALAHI-CIDSS, where Pablo is national project director.

"The training center is not only for the students but also for the women and out-of-school youth in order to provide them facilities for training to improve their living," Pablo added.

The P900,000-training center was part of KALAHI-CIDSS' third cycle projects in Sarangani. It can house up to 50 trainees.

KALAHI-CIDSS, a nationwide program of President Arroyo with funding from the World Bank, enables communities and local government units to identify their own projects then build them together.

According to Pablo, Sarangani is the best implementer of the KALAHI-CIDSS program in the country.

For his part, Governor Migs Dominguez said "government is all about partnership."

"Let's put our acts together to achieve success," the governor added.

"KALAHI-CIDSS helps not only us the students but the community," 4th year student Wilbert Seno shared.

Seno said "partnership for me means that we cannot achieve something by doing it alone, but we can do great things by working together with little beginnings."

A classroom building was built here in 2005 during KALAHI-CIDSS' second cycle implementation.

Last week, officials and community volunteers opened a 2.15-kilometer road at Lanao Mafnoh, a B'laan village, where horses used to carry farm products to the town site via a trail.

The road now connects to two other villages reaching out to more than 2,000 households at the town's outskirts.
Malapatan and Malungon towns have been beneficiaries of more than P72 million worth of road projects, water system, and school buildings through KALAHI-CIDSS with community counterparts. (SARANGANI INFORMATION OFFICE/RGP)