Saturday, July 05, 2008 Vice mayor sets 4 programs for barangays By Grace L. Plata
THE Office of the Vice Mayor will focus on barangay development programs in the latter part of 2008 as part of the Inday Para sa Barangay (IPSB) caravan.
Acting Mayor Sara Z. Duterte said four programs have already been identified, two of which have already started.
These include support for barangay health workers, emergency training programs in the barangay, livelihood projects for barangay women, and computer skills training for public school teachers.
As an added feature of IPSB, barangay health workers will be provided with medical kits and umbrella to aid them in providing medical care on a mobile basis.
The Search and Rescue Auxiliary (Sara) training, on the other hand, is a supplementary program for Davao City's Central 911 Response Center, which Duterte admitted is short on staff.
"The training aims to create barangay-based emergency responders. The youth participants shall be trained in basic life-saving techniques by the Disaster and Response Team (DART) and firefighting skills by the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP)," Duterte said.
The first batch of Sara participants has started training on June 13, 2008.
Four hundred women from the city's coastal barangays will also be trained on culinary arts and cosmetology. Duterte said this is in response to the call for additional sources of livelihood.
Public school teachers in far-flung barangays of the 3rd district will also undergo training on basic computer skills.
Duterte said the training aims to capacitate the teachers on the use of computers especially now that the city is set to connect all public high schools to the Internet through its partnership with Ayala Foundation's Gilas project.
Gilas, or Gearing Up Internet Literacy Access for Students, is a nationwide program with local government units (LGUs) aiming to provide public high school students with access to the Internet.
Each school will be provided with 10 computer units each and free Internet connection for a year.
