Cavite urban poor get funds for livelihood

Selected urban poor communities on Saturday received funding for livelihood and job-generating projects fit for the needs of residents in their areas.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development on Saturday awarded three communities in Rosario, Cavite P1.2 million each for their respective livelihood projects. The funds came from a World Bank facility.

The project, dubbed “Improving Livelihood Opportunities for Vulnerable Urban Poor Communities (LVUC),” will support 3,750 households in 75 urban poor communities in Cavite, Laguna, Mandaluyong, Malabon and Malate.

The LVUC project is funded by a $3 million grant from the Japan Social Development Fund Facility of the World Bank.

The first batch of beneficiaries was awarded in Cavite on Saturday.

The three communities which received the cash assistance are expected to use the funds in labor-intensive small scale development projects, which will generate jobs in the community, as well as in livelihood skills training to help residents get jobs, and in community enterprises.

The project is a component of the DSWD’s Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS), which has been implemented mostly in rural areas.

Under the program, communities will select projects they want to embark on depending on the needs of the area. This is aimed at helping communities improve their plight.

Some projects that have been implemented by communities under the program include daycare centers, health stations, a water system, small bridges, drainage structures and sanitation facilities.

DSWD Secretary Corazon Soliman said she expects success in bringing community-driven development to urban poor areas.

“With the success of Kalahi-CIDSS in the rural areas, we are now looking into replicating the program’s time tested [community driven development] approach to address the incidence of poverty in urban areas,” Soliman said.

Beneficiaries of the program, along with local officials and staff members, will be organized and trained to choose, design, implement and manage the projects that would address the communities’ most pressing needs.

The funds are given to areas highly dependent on manufacturing and services industries, and acutely feel the effect of the global financial crisis, according to the project briefer.

Poor families in these areas would be pushed deeper into poverty if their condition was not addressed, while those who are not poor could be left impoverished, it added.

The project’s beneficiaries were selected based on data from the National Household Targeting System on Poverty Reduction on pockets of poverty in urban areas.

Also influencing the selection were population density, unemployment, potential for developing local enterprises around existing economic activities and potential for accessing assistance from non-government groups and private corporations.