A success story: UNO-R students supporting SDC kids

The summer holidays have started as it is getting increasingly hot in the Philippines. The first batch of UNO-R students have now completed their volunteering mission at the SDC. Over the last six months, two social worker students, two psychology students, and a group of criminology students have put a lot of energy in supporting the SDC.

The psychology trainees spent time and devotion for the SDC children within a comprehensive support program, which included various objectives: enhancing the children's creativity, cooperation and thinking skills, helping on their social and emotional concerns, regaining their self-esteem and facilitating their social integration, teaching them about their social roles and responsibilities, and building coping skills. The skilled and passionate young social workers offered their dedicated and tailored support to the children. They worked on developing their physical and creative skills, assisting the children’s concerns regarding the status of their legal cases, helping them to reconcile with their families, and also emphasizing on the importance of education. Also, the criminology students effectively helped to improve the children's awareness on legal enforcement and childrights, to develop the children’s physical skills through sports activities, as well as to ensure the children's safety and security within the center.

A 'despedida' (local dialect for 'farewell') was organized at the end of their placement at the SDC last month. The Peace Corps volunteer, deployed at the center, along with Virlanie and HOST-NGO team, awarded the students with certificates of appreciation. This farewell party was quite emotional as the kids thanked them for their involvement and gave them plenty of hugs! The University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos (UNO-R) also organized a recognition ceremony for their partners, which include the SDC. As a fully involved organization at the SDC, our team was requested to share with the audience the importance of the students' resources dedicated to this public center, and to explain how the People-Private-Public Partnership (PPPP) concept could benefit to every stakeholder.

Our team is now looking forward to welcome the next batch of UNO-R students in June to share new knowledge and experiences with the children and staff at the SDC.

Aikido at SDC: a healthy mind in a healthy body

Since the launching of aikido activities at SDC last August, the interest of the children has been growing despite the initial doubts raising from the local staff and some neighbouring communities. Indeed a few people have been worried that this new program would actually promote the use of violence for these young teenagers who are already invoved into a violent environment. However it rapidly proved that there would not be any negative outcome generated by this activity. Mostly used to practicing basketball, the children really appreciate this new way of getting conscious of their body while stimulating their mind. Mind setting is a major factor in the practice of this martial art which was created in the 1950's aside to ju-jitsu, kenjutsu (art of saber) and aikijujitsu (art of harmonizing energies). A healthy mind in a healthy body: these are two inseparable and complementary entities!

Week after week, around 15 children have been initiated to the various self-defense techniques taught by the team of volunteers from Warriors For Peace (http://bacolod-partners.blogspot.com/2012/08/conflict-management-prevention-with.html). The latter made sure that the children were mature enough to adopt a non-violent approach in order to prevent any risk of incident between the young people and also toward the staff.

The 12 matresses required for the practice have been funded by HOST-NGO, thanks to our generous donors. In order to educate the children on the importance to preserve the equipment at the SDC, and also as a way of reducing the costs, they have been involved into the making of the matresses. Kenneth L. Materum, volunteer from Warriors For Peace, and one of our volunteer from HOST-NGO, have run the workshops teaching to the children how to assemble the plywood slabs with the layers made of rubber and styrofoam, which were then wrapped with vinyl plastic.

The frequency of the sessions has been increased to twice a week at the SDC. The practice room has become an actual Dojo with this new equipment, which enabled to set-up the same routines as the ones to be found all over Asia and throughout the world. The practice has also been enhanced with the viewing of documentaries on aikido. This program is already successful as some of the young participants are willing to enter a Dojo when they will leave the center. Warriors For Peace is committed to help them achieve that goal. This will be an amazing reward considering the patient and passionate contribution from Warriors For Peace, which has been striving for years to promote peace and dialogue between the communities on the Negros Island.

SDC's young skilled gardeners

The dry season started a few weeks ago and the SDC's organic garden has been blooming very fast. Thanks to the involvement of some house parents, dedicated to the protection of the nature, the children are now used to take care of this garden, twice a day, and they enjoyed this activity. It is located in-between the girls dormitory and the nipa-ad, which is the traditional bamboo house that serves as a watching and meeting point in the center of the SDC courtyard. Last year, they had been planting medicinal seeds, which allow to treat minor infections. This year, the children can now eat their own eggplants, pumpkins, green beans, chilli peppers, and chinese cabbages.

Mrs. Edna Garde, the Filipina volunteer, who has been coordinating that project on a weekly basis, has definitely succeeded in her mission to raise the awareness of the children on the benefits of gardening. The children genuinely love looking at the veggies growing up. Over the last few weeks, they have been planting tomatoes on the soil previously enriched with compost. They should start producing a new compost with the support of CAPGEM, SDC's partner, whose team will provide all the equipment needed.

Upon six months of running activity, the initial objective has almost been reached: to educate and train the children of the SDC on gardening technics. The first results have already been observed. Four young boys, aged 15 to 17 years old, who were regularly involved and showed lots of attention to Edna's gardening sessions, will enter a community-based rehabilitation program with a gardening certificate signed by their teacher. They have succeeded to acquire the knowledge and skills shared by Edna, which offers them better opportunities to find a job in the future. The labor market of the Philippines remains very informal and every asset counts for a potential employer.

SDC conducts a team building seminar

On March 20th, the first team building session was held by Daniel Ress, US Peace Corps, and Kenneth Lee O. Materum, Warriors For Peace, at the New Government Center of Bacolod City. Twenty members of the SDC staff, including Mrs. Gina Castro, Center Head, along with a few volunteers from HOST-NGO and Virlanie Foundation participated into this one-day workshop.
The seminar is part of the SDC capacity building program implemented in collaboration with SDC's partners, HOST-NGO and Virlanie Foundation. Following an assessment phase, several tools have been designed to be used at the center in order to reinforce the team motivation: 'appreciation board', 'Employee of the Month award' and 'community plan'. The objective of the day was to introduce a positive culture within the SDC and to give the opportunity to each staff to express himself/herself.

The working atmosphere was friendly and the seminar started with an ice breaker, “The Boat Is Sinking”, which illustrated the necessity of team cooperation and good communication. After this activity, the appreciation board was created to underline every little thing that the team is doing on a daily basis, which contributes into making the center a better place for the kids to live and for the adults to work. The Employee of the Month award was welcomed with enthusiast by the team. Each member was involved to decide on the selection criteria, based on attendance, behavior, listening skills, commitment to work, capacity to take initiatives, etc. The discussion led to the staff agreement on the policy, voting process and type of award. Upon lunch break, the Participatory Analysis for Community Action (PACA) methodology was used to identify and list the strengths and concerns at the SDC. This participatory process resulted in community mapping, calendar, assessment of needs and priority ranking. The children's safety has been ranked as foremost priority to be addressed at the SDC.

Overall this seminar was a success and it highlighted the necessity to conduct such sessions in order to motivate and commit the staff members. Team spirit is indeed one of the most important values to be promoted to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of our support in development projects.

West Negros University supporting SDC's education program

West Negros University has a National Service Training Program in Literacy Development. As part of this program, they ran six Saturday tutoring lessons with the children of the SDC. We were happy to have 22 Teacher Education students help our residents. The children were divided into two groups, those enrolled in ALS and the younger children not enrolled in ALS. The ALS students focused on activities to supplement the ALS curriculum. The other children worked on functional literacy skills that varied according to the children’s wide-ranging abilities and academic experience.

It was very exciting to see this program not only as a welcome addition to our growing education program at the SDC, but also as a support to the building culture of learning at the SDC. The children are very eager to learn and to progress academically, and turnout at the optional tutoring sessions is always above 90%. Even after the tutors left the sessions, several of the children would keep working together to practice and teach one another skills.

It is now summer break for schools in the Philippines, so tutoring from West Negros University is on hold. However, we hope to solidify a formal partnership over the summer so that we will have tutors during both semesters next school year and in the future. This program holds great promise as a means of bolstering the ALS program and in providing basic literacy education services to the street children and other children at risk at the center, as well as in providing hands-on teaching and community outreach experience to teaching students at West Negros University.

Bacolod City to start renovating the SDC

The direct intervention of Virlanie-Bacolod and HOST-NGO at the SDC, which started early 2012, has already resulted in some improvement of the living conditions of the children sheltered at the center. The water supply has indeed been secured thanks to the building of a deep well along with the installation of a water pump.

However, the major part of the rehabilitation strategy is still on-going. The City of Bacolod has recently allocated 500,000 Pesos (about 10,000 Euros) for the most urgent renovation works: renovation of the sanitation facilities (shower and toilets), water drainage system and electricity supply (solar panel and lights for the dormitories).

The City has recently taken this budgeting decision, following the collaborative effort spent on assessing and designing the rehabilitation process by the SDC Center Head, the public engineers and Virlanie-Bacolod team earlier in 2012. The local authorities are now calling for bids with the intent of starting the construction works in March.

The children of the SDC will be able to witness the results of this community approach, which will directly benefit their well-being. Very soon, they will be able to enjoy decent sanitary conditions thanks to the new showers and toilets to be set-up for them.

The Alternative Learning System (ALS) is back!

Going to school and learning is one of the fundamental children's rights. The Republic Act 9155 and the Executive order n°356 define and institute a framework of governance for basic education in the Philippines. Today, 20 million children are enrolled in primary and secondary education, but two million will give up or fail, even though education is free in the Philippines. ¹

Children present in the SDC are out of school and it can have a very negative effect on their future lives, especially for those present in the center for a long term, such as Children in Conflict with the Law who have court cases. Teachers had refused to continue teaching in the center for security, hygiene and organization reasons in 2008. The children’s lack of educative follow-up since then has made their rehabilitation much more difficult.

Following the report from the Virlanie Human Rights Coordinator and in order to satisfy their needs and rights, HOST-NGO coordinated and facilitated the return of the Alternative Learning System to the SDC. On Friday 18th of January 2013, there was a launching ceremony for ALS. Two city counselors, the Assistant Superintendant of the Department of Education and community representatives (including a Barangay Captain) were there.

Starting in February, fifteen Children in Conflict with the Law will benefit from the classes of the two teachers, Jason and Carlito. An initial test will help to identify the education background of the children, in order to adapt the classes. The program will be divided into several modules, taught according to the educational level of the child. The objectives of ALS are to develop critical thinking, build communication skills, expand one’s world vision, etc.

In order to ensure the quality of the program, HOST-NGO committed to providing the educational material necessary (crayons, drawing books, rules, scissors, etc) and the classroom furnitures (chairs, tables, and whiteboard). The school year can start!

1 http://www.unicef.org/philippines/supportunicef_9857.html