LGU build up SPES involvement in dev’t projects

LGU-Tacurong, through the Public Employment Service Office (PESO), takes SPES implementation a notch higher by involving student-grantees in multi-stakeholder development projects in the city.  

PEACE Summer Reading & Math Camp

Glyza Rea, 16, a BSED student of SKSU, thought that she will be assigned with routinely office tasks for her summer job in the LGU.

However, the LGU has something better in mind for her and for other grantees of the Special Program for the Employment of Students or SPES.

On April 21, Glyza and 8 other grantees who are education majors started rendering their service as reading mentors in the LGU’s PEACE Summer Reading and Math Camp in Barangay Grino, Tacurong City. As reading mentors, they are tasked to assist teachers in facilitating classroom learning discussions and in preparing materials.

Also members of the PEACE Camp Staff are three SPES grantees taking up Hotel and Restaurant Management. They are tasked to help in the daily lunch feeding program of the camp.

The camp aims to improve competencies of incoming Grade III pupils to prepare them for the National Achievement Test. Most pupil-campers belong to indigent families in the barangay.

The PEACE Summer Camp is an initiative of the LGU co-funded by SEAOIL,in partnership with KAYA NATIN Movement, Ateneo School of Governance and DILG.

SPES reading mentors and feeding support staff are also required to submit daily observation reports. This helps LGU camp staff in documenting and monitoring children’s improvement in the learning areas and even on their nutritional status.

Project PAGLAUM, achieving MDGs

On April 22, forty SPES grantees have undergone orientation on the LGU’s Project PAGLAUM under the Millennium Development Goals-Family Based Actions for Children and their Environs in the Slum or MDG-FACES.

Project PAGLAUM is being implemented among forty family-partners in Purok Onse, Barangay Poblacion.

Each family-partner is assigned with one SPES grantee.

Each member of the SPES team for Project PAGLAUM conducts intake interview and data gathering in his/her assigned family-partner. A SPES grantee under the project also maintains a daily journal. This journal contains all his/her observations and other necessary information that may be useful in developing interventions for the family-partners.

With the guidance of city social workers, SPES grantees also conduct/facilitate project activity planning and monitoring. Among activities that will be facilitated are sessions on proper hygiene, clean-up and flower gardening, and group dynamics. SPES grantees are also involved in facilitating children’s rights and gender sensitivity training for the children and their parents.

They are tasked to submit photo documentation of each family-partner’s significant tasks and activities.

Project PAGLAUM prioritizes children’s rights to a peaceful and healthy environment. This project was conceived when LGU-Tacurong City became a recipient of DILG’s MDG-FACES Program.

According to Mayor Lina O. Montilla, SPES grantees’ involvement in the LGU’s development projects is a manifestation of its willingness to engage the youth in the process of nation-building. “Bisan sa nubo nga panahon nga ma-involve sila sa projects, ginalauman namon nga madala kag masapuso nila ang aton nga mga adbokasiya,” Mayor Montilla added.