My First Bi-Weekly Report

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First Bi-Weekly Overseas Volunteer Report
Volunteer Name: Lisa White Departure Date: May 18, 2005
Partner Agency: DSWD Return Date: Sept. 2, 2005
Project Location: Iloilo City, Philippines Reporting Date: June 19, 2005

Special Questions for First Report

1. Please provide contact phone numbers and names where you can best be reached in the office, in the field, and at home.

I am available on my cellphone anytime at 09283967996 (Smart).

2. Please describe where are you living now? Does it allow for cultural integration? Is it safe? How much does it cost a month? Is this where you will spend the rest of the summer? Are you happy with these arrangements?

My Filipino partner (Andrea) and I are living in a dorm room at the DSWD office. The room is sparse, but comfortable, and it has air con and an adjacent bathroom. It is safe and costs 100 pesos per person per night. It allows for limited cultural integration, as we are not living with a family (as typical Filipinos), but there are often people around the DSWD facility to interact with. In addition, I am seeing the DSWD’s vital work firsthand, as they have a crisis intervention center beneath our room. People at varying levels of crisis stay there for short periods of time and I get to hear about their stories from the DSWD staff who are helping them. It has been very worthwhile for me to learn about how people are helped by the DSWD, as it paints a much more realistic picture of the Philippines for me.

We eat at the DSWD canteen during the day and then find our own dinners in the evenings. There are limited cooking facilities, so we have typically been eating at restaurants and street canteens for our suppers, which is more expensive than eating with a family would be, and definitely not typical for most Filipinos.

3. Is your stipend sufficient for the costs that you are paying? If not please propose a revised budget that includes detailed cost estimates for rent, food, transport, communications, etc to help us in our planning.

Prior to arriving at my placement, the stipend was not sufficient. Transport, meals and accommodation cost far more than $5 a day. Since my arrival at my placement, though, the stipend has been sufficient. The budget that has been provided by the CSWDO does not always cover the entire cost of our evening meals, so I have been supplementing it from my stipend.

4. Provide a brief summary of who you are working with and their roles at the partner organization.

Eduardo Guevarra: Youth Development Officer, DSWD, Regional Office Focal Person
Claire Dignadice: Head officer of the CSWDO
Nida G. Espadon: Center Manager, Youth Social Worker, CSWDO
Jona S. Senarillos: Social Welfare Officer III, CSWDO
Teresa V. Lareda: Social Worker Focal Person, CSWDO
Felina Cordova, Ronaldo Lamit Jr., Rosario Palec, Carmela Saclote: Trainers

5. Please provide a 100 word summary of the work you are expecting to be focusing on this summer. We will use this write up to pass along to people in the office, chapter members, and potentially funders so they will know what you are up to. Please include a brief description of your background (what you are studying, where you are from etc), a description of the organization you are working with (vision, history, activities, etc), and what your role will likely be this summer.

My work this summer is focused on the development of an ICT center for out of school Filipino youth. The hope is that the center will teach them computer and life skills to allow them to return to school or obtain employment. This includes helping to set up 2 SCALA centers in two different communities, as well as transferring capacity for implementing SCALA centers to the Filipinos/CSWDO. This will be accomplished by working with a Filipino partner who is a center manager at another SCALA center in the Philippines. Each placement will take place over a seven week period, in which time we hope to facilitate the successful implementation of a SCALA center.

I am currently in the final months of obtaining a Master’s Degree in Agricultural and Bioresource Engineering. My thesis focuses on water contamination pathways from livestock. I am originally from Yorkton, Saskatchewan, and I joined EWB in 2004.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is our partner organization in the Philippines. They are a government office that offers social services to the local community. Their mission is to provide social protection and promote the rights and welfare of the poor, vulnerable, and the disadvantaged individual, family, and community to contribute to poverty alleviation and empowerment through social welfare development policies, programs, projects, and services implemented with or through LGUs, NGOs, GOs, POs, and other members of civil society. Their vision is a society where the poor, vulnerable, and disadvantaged individuals, families, and communities are empowered for an improved quality of life.

As far as this summer is concerned, I see my role as the following:
1. To help set a schedule and agenda for the Scala volunteers.
2. To ensure that the CSWDO have ownership of the project and are the ones directing the set up of the center.
3. To provide guidance on the organization of set-up of the center.
4. To offer new ideas/advice on more efficient ways to organize the center.
5. To help with presentation materials and promotion of the project.
6. To help orient appropriate people within the LGU and DSWD about the project.
7. To act as a resource/guide for meetings.
8. To push timelines/deadlines.
9. To help set up meetings with appropriate people in order to promote communication within the LGU/CSWDO.
10. To ensure lines of communication are open between people and departments by maintaining contact with all individuals involved in the project.
11. To provide leadership in the areas of initiative, independence, questioning attitude.
12. To direct discussions (where possible and appropriate) toward most relevant/pressing issues.
13. To report to and keep the Scala coordinator updated on implementation of the project.

Health, Safety and Logistics

6. Have you had any health problems whatsoever in the past two weeks?

No. Just eating a lot.



7. Have you encountered any safety issues at all in the past two weeks?

No.



8. Where will you be in the next two weeks? Describe in as much detail as possible any travel that is not routine (e.g. where you will be going, how will you be getting there, who will you be traveling with and for what dates will you be gone?)

I will be traveling with the Girl Scouts of Iloilo to their campsite on the 25th of June for the day to plant seedling trees. We will be traveling via private bus. I will also be accompanying Andrea Gerona (my Filipino partner) to Bago City (her hometown) on the weekend of 17th of June. I will be gone from Friday afternoon to Monday morning and will visit the Bago City SCALA center on Monday morning before returning to Iloilo City.

9. Please summarize any questions (logistics or otherwise) you have for us here.

Nothing as of yet.



Personal and Project Update

10. How have you been feeling about the placement and your role in it? Do you feel like you are learning enough?

I feel that I am still working on defining my role and, specifically, how much to do myself and how much to let other people do. I have to keep reminding myself that I am not the one starting up a center and that the project needs to be CSWDO driven. I am trying my best to let the people who are going to be running the center and the program to do as much as possible so that they feel that they have ownership of the project.

11. What are the more striking things that you have learned (about yourself, development, poverty, etc) over the past two weeks?

I have learned to be more adaptable and patient. Things definitely do not run the same way in the Philippines as they do in Canada and I have to get used to it. But I think it’s also very interesting to learn a different way of doing things.

I’ve also learned that development work is more frustrating than I thought it would be. On the one hand, if you do everything yourself the project will fail, but on the other hand, it’s really difficult to not take on a lot of responsibility because you want the project to be a success. The most difficult part of my job so far has been knowing when to step in and provide guidance and suggestions or to just sit and be silent and let people work out solutions for themselves. I’m still working on that one.

12. Have you been able to interact with the community in such a way as to reduce the culture of dependency? Please describe?

I have been trying. I realize that I am not the one who should be making decisions about the center and the project - it should be the CSWDO people who are directing things. Also, I try to ensure that my Filipino partner, Andrea, has as much participation in the project and process as I have.

13. What are your goals (project and otherwise) over the next month? What do you hope to accomplish/learn/experience?

I hope that I can get to know some of the people that I work with at the CSWDO better and as a result integrate into the community better. I hope to accomplish this by spending more time with people after work doing activities in the evenings or on the weekends. I sometimes feel that chatting with people during the work day is not a very good use of my (or their) time and that social interaction should be saved for after hours. But most people go home to their families directly at the end of the day, so there is often little chance for socialization after hours.

I also hope to achieve balance within my role as a SCALA volunteer so that I am an effective development worker. To me, this means that I would like to reach a point where I know when to step in and make suggestions/offer guidance (and also what suggestions to make to have the best outcome) and when to stay out of things and let people develop their own solutions.

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