Daily Archives: February 13, 2021

The final webinar of the series, UNLAD: Para kanino? Talakayan ukol sa pagbubuo ng mga proyektong pang-kaunlaran ng komunidad, explored the fundamentals of Preparing and Writing Project Proposals. The session’s speaker was Assistant Professor Devralin T. Lagos from the College of Social Work and Community Development, University of the Philippines Diliman.  Just like with the previous sessions, this webinar is aimed at ensuring that all processes involved from the conceptualization until evaluation of projects in the community are anchored upon the principles of a people-centered development. It emphasized the importance of community organizing. Project development practitioners need to conduct iterative and joint writing workshops and to assign community workers as “facilitators of development planning and proposal development” that “handover the stick” to the community. The speaker reiterated that the people in the communities are not just “add-ons.” They should be the centre of the project. To be anchored in the principles of people-centred development means to  undertake the questions “Kaninong plano at pangarap ang dapat maisalamin ng project proposal?” and “Sino ang dapat magsulat ng proposal?” With conviction, the speaker answered that her bias was that the community members should be writing the proposal. In the latter part of her presentation, she cited an example where a community wrote a paper abstract and even presented it at an international conference proving her point that community members can write a project proposal. However, she acknowledged the prevalence of instances where the office or the students themselves write the proposal. Most importantly, she reminded everyone that it is still possible to engage in participatory methods when writing proposals.  The speaker cited an example that reinforced the mentioned key points. A fisherfolk community harvests and sells shellfish. This community is prone to red tide, resulting in loss of income and extreme hunger and poverty. The community had done community planning workshops concerning their situation due to the red tide. They analyzed their progression of vulnerability and progression of safety. They realized that their lack of savings even without red tide causes extreme poverty. Poverty is the lack of access to resources of the […]