Saturday, December 02, 2006 Poor, church, city tackle livelihood
FISHERFOLK, the urban poor, vendors, technical groups and the church have pooled their resources with the City Government to increase productivity at the barangay level.
Chief Technical Assistant to the City Administrator Alfredo Pontillo said the efforts are part of the City Government's Development Management Resource Program, a brainchild of the city mayor's consultants. It aims to synchronize various sectors and departments to effect policies and programs that would increase the productivity and build up the confidence of the poor sector especially at the barangay level.
Pontillo, who also serves as action officer for the program, added that consultations have been conducted with almost all sectors in Davao City to guide them in coming up with home-grown initiatives that are also in line with the common interests of other sectors so that efforts would be geared towards the completion of goal of development for all.
The sectors who have come up with their proposals will be beneficiaries of funding for livelihood projects that fit the sector's capabilities or a barangay's local industry.
It is the first time for Pentecostal and Evangelical churches in the city to come together in a development project, he said. Pontillo said the role of the churches are to educate their members, especially those rural areas, about the development projects and grants that they can avail. These are to be incorporated in the churches' outreach projects.
Environmental advocacies, in partnership with the environment-concerned sector, will be included in these information drives.
Pontillo said that the endpoint of these efforts is not only a strengthened and developed multi-sectoral assembly but identifying credible sectoral representatives that are truly coming from the stakeholders themselves. (GLP)
