DSWD holds gender-based disaster risk training

A TOTAL of 94 Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (Pantawid Pamilya) workers from the 78 provinces of the country have been oriented on mainstreaming gender in disaster risk management in Cagayan de Oro.

The training intends to adopt the trend by providing the participants with a beginning orientation about the importance of integrating gender concerns in their disaster related programs, projects and services to further mitigate the effects of disaster in the localities that they serve.

Lawyer Araceli F. Solamillo, Regional Director of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Field Office in Northern Mindanao, expressed her utmost support to the training, saying that this “will fill gaps in practical guidance in gender mainstreaming on disaster risk management at the community level to have an enhanced awareness on gender issues and concerns in local and community based disaster risk management.”

Solamillo said the training is responsive to the policy and practical guidelines drafted by the international community on how to mainstream gender in disaster risk management for national governments.

For his part, Primitivo T. Rufin, head of DSWD’s Institutional Development Division, said that the training will increase the skills and capabilities of the participants in integrating gender perspective in community based disaster risk management and provides them with the ability to select and use gender analysis and participatory tools, methods and processes in community based risk assessment and risk management planning.

“This will equip you with common definitions of important concepts used in community based DRRM (disaster risk reduction management); orient you on the importance and purposes of integrating gender concerns in community based DRRM and its elements and processes,” Rufin told the participants during the start of the training on August 27.

Among the participants to the training were Provincial Links of Pantawid Pamilya, Social Welfare Officer III and project development officers for gender and development of every province.

Among the resource speakers are Professors Leticia Tojos and Victor Obedicen of the University of the Philippines-Diliman. (PR/DSWD)