Kalinga Caravan drive/Photo from the Department of Social Welfare and Development
Efforts to bring crisis services of the government’s social welfare and development agency within the reach of poverty-stricken families are underway.
“Kalinga Caravan,” a mobile crisis intervention unit, was launched by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to bring services such as medical and educational assistance closer to “unserved and underserved” indigents across the country.
The project, initiated by DSWD Undersecretary Isko Moreno, also provides orientations on social pension for senior citizens and the government’s sustainable livelihood program.
“It’s just sad to think that families have to travel all the way from their provinces to our field offices just to receive government services. That’s why we want to bring the services closer to them,” Moreno told INQUIRER.net in an interview.
Each field office of the DSWD has its own respective crisis intervention unit. Moreno, however, noted that some of the field offices are not actually located in the regions they’re assigned to.
“Some people would be surprised to know that the field office for Region 4A is located in Alabang, Muntinlupa while the field office for 4B is in Malate, Manila,” he said.
“Some would pay bus fares worth P400 to P500, others P700, just to travel to Metro Manila to apply for assistance. They could have been using the transport expenses for themselves,” he lamented.
In implementing the program, Moreno said that social workers would be tasked to regularly monitor villages to determine where the DSWD could deploy its unit.
The project underwent a test run on Monday, July 2, at “Happyland” in Tondo, Manila, a residential area mired in poverty, where 500 residents applied for medical and educational assistance.
“Out of 500 residents who applied for assistance, 460 were served by the DSWD. The other 40 weren’t given at the time due to lack of requirements,” Moreno said.
“Also, apart from the 500 residents, there were about 200 senior citizens who underwent screening by social workers for their social pension,” he added.
Moreno believes that the program would expedite the access of poor families to government social welfare services.
Following the test run in Manila, the DSWD is aiming to conduct another caravan in Region 4-A or the Calabarzon region, Moreno said.