CEBUANO professor Felisa U. Etemadi was awarded by the University of the Philippines Alumni Association (UPAA) as the 2009 Distinguished Alumni Awardee in Poverty Alleviation.

In celebration of the UP Centennial last year, the UPAA introduced 14 thematic awards, one of which was poverty alleviation.

For updates from around the country, follow Sun.Star on Twitter

Etemadi of UP Cebu College was the lone awardee this year and the first outside Luzon.

She was nominated for her lifework in promoting human development and poverty alleviation.

Her selection highlights the role of the academe in poverty alleviation through research and extension work.

Through Resolution 02-2006, the Cebu City Council adopted Etemadi’s study Poverty Mapping in Cebu City “as the mayor’s reference in prioritizing projects.”

The City Planning and Development Office used the report as the basis in selecting disparity barangays for the Unicef Sixth Country Programme for Children (CPC VI) implementation in Cebu City starting in 2007.

With her findings on Children in Conflict with the Law in Cebu, she conducted four briefings with the Five Pillars of Justice (Community, Police, Prosecution, Correction and Rehabilitation), and two trainings among Department of Social Welfare and Development social workers in Cebu and Region 7 regarding policy and implementation gaps in juvenile justice.

Survey

Her work on Survey Among Young Seamen in Selected Ports in Cebu, Davao and Manila, done in collaboration with Fr. Roland Doriol and Ching Ye, was used by the Apostleship of the Sea to support funding request for a Seamen Center in Cebu which was finally inaugurated on April 29, 2004.

Last year, she was engaged as a consultant (which she rendered pro bono) by the Archdiocese of Cebu in the date processing and analysis and providing guidelines for packaging the Cebu Archdiocesan Rural Congress Report as well as the Central Visayas and Eastern Visayas Rural Congress Reports.

Presently, she serves as a consultant on a pro bono basis in the evaluation of the European Union-funded Family Development Program which is implemented among the poorest of the poor in Cebu and Mandaue cities by five local nongovernment organizations in partnership with InterAide.

Awarding

The awarding was held during the UP General Alumni-Faculty Homecoming and Reunion at the UP Diliman campus.

The other Cebuanos in the previous nationwide search for UPAA awardees in other fields include former chief justices Hilario Davide Jr. and Marcelo Fernan, scientist Dr. Romulo Davide, Cebu Provincial Board member Agnes Magpale and environmental lawyer Antonio Oposa.