First there was Project Compassion, a project launched at the beginning of the 70s as a flagship social development initiative of the then First Lady, Mrs. Imelda Marcos. Atty. Ramon P. Binamira was appointed its President. He recruited, in turn, his own people who pioneered with him the country's community development program, launched at the same as a similar initiative as the government program in India.
Pres, Ramon Magsaysay tapped the 27-year old brilliant young man, a bar topnother from Cebu, to head the Presidential Assistant for Community Development (PACD), Atty. Ramon P. Binamira or RPB, as he was called by friends and associates, was given a cabinet rank to show the high importance given the program by the Magsaysay administration.
In some quarters, they viewed the creation of the PACD as a handiwork of the CIA to address the growing insurgency emerging from a restive rural populace who were still left out of the benefits of a democratic government which they helped install. RPB insisted and rightly so that those to be fielded to the barrios should undergo an eight-month training course and be given a certificate as professional community development workers by the Community Development Center near the University of the Philippines Los Banos.
For the first time in the Philippines, as it was in India, there was a group of college graduates professionally focused on how to deliver basic services in the countryside. Basically their task as CD workers was to liaise with government agencies and coordinate with these agencies on how to bring their technical assistance and development commodities to specific communities beyond the poblacion or town center. The barrio worker under PACD served as the link between the barangay and government primarily on facilitating service delivery to the village people.
In Project Compassion, almost two decades after the launching of PACD, RPB and his community development pioneers introduced an innovation to this system. Sometime in 1973, he joined Mrs. Marcos on a trip to China and saw something new which could be grafted to the old PACD approach. Like government functionaries from other countries, he also saw how the barefoot strategy, basically recruiting and training extension agents from the target communities themselves, could be adopted to expand and maintain the outreach of services to the countryside.
By 1973, he was able to launch the new Project Compassion approach with the deployment of trained Unit Leaders from target communities in the pilot 11 provinces throughout the country. The UL became the trained barefoot extension worker linking the 20-family units to government agencies which were sources of seeds, family planning commodities, health and nutrition interventions for malnourished children and sick family members, more importantly, basic information imparted by government extension workers who could not possibly reach remote communities and households on a daily basis.
UNICEF came in with vehicles and support to the provision of child-based services, e.g. immunization, water and sanitation, commodities to feed severely malnourished children, etc. and encouraged independent evaluation of the innovative approach. UNICEF saw Project Compassion as consistent with its basic services strategy being promoted globally which sought to enhance community participation in the programs and projects that it supports.
The evaluation conducted on the Project Compassion initiative showed marked improvement in the scope and quality of services rendered in areas with barefoot workers or unit leaders as compared to those which depended on visits of barrio workers fielded by the national government.
In 1977, during the meeting of the internaitonal board of UNICEF in Manila, the Project Compassion case was presented and field visits were conducted for the board members who were organized into small teams to have a closer look for elements of the new approach in project sites in 11 provinces.
The Project Compassion approach earned praises and endorsements from the UNICEF Board. The stage was set for a more intensive in-house review to set parameters for possible expansion and to document more fully the requirements for a replicable program under the UNICEF-Philippines First Country Programme for Children.
UNICEF became in effect an active partner of Project Compassion in the search for effective community development approaches during the martial law regime, which was not exactly friendly to initiatives involving local communities and households in the hinterlands.
More on this in the next blog.
Pres, Ramon Magsaysay tapped the 27-year old brilliant young man, a bar topnother from Cebu, to head the Presidential Assistant for Community Development (PACD), Atty. Ramon P. Binamira or RPB, as he was called by friends and associates, was given a cabinet rank to show the high importance given the program by the Magsaysay administration.
In some quarters, they viewed the creation of the PACD as a handiwork of the CIA to address the growing insurgency emerging from a restive rural populace who were still left out of the benefits of a democratic government which they helped install. RPB insisted and rightly so that those to be fielded to the barrios should undergo an eight-month training course and be given a certificate as professional community development workers by the Community Development Center near the University of the Philippines Los Banos.
For the first time in the Philippines, as it was in India, there was a group of college graduates professionally focused on how to deliver basic services in the countryside. Basically their task as CD workers was to liaise with government agencies and coordinate with these agencies on how to bring their technical assistance and development commodities to specific communities beyond the poblacion or town center. The barrio worker under PACD served as the link between the barangay and government primarily on facilitating service delivery to the village people.
In Project Compassion, almost two decades after the launching of PACD, RPB and his community development pioneers introduced an innovation to this system. Sometime in 1973, he joined Mrs. Marcos on a trip to China and saw something new which could be grafted to the old PACD approach. Like government functionaries from other countries, he also saw how the barefoot strategy, basically recruiting and training extension agents from the target communities themselves, could be adopted to expand and maintain the outreach of services to the countryside.
By 1973, he was able to launch the new Project Compassion approach with the deployment of trained Unit Leaders from target communities in the pilot 11 provinces throughout the country. The UL became the trained barefoot extension worker linking the 20-family units to government agencies which were sources of seeds, family planning commodities, health and nutrition interventions for malnourished children and sick family members, more importantly, basic information imparted by government extension workers who could not possibly reach remote communities and households on a daily basis.
UNICEF came in with vehicles and support to the provision of child-based services, e.g. immunization, water and sanitation, commodities to feed severely malnourished children, etc. and encouraged independent evaluation of the innovative approach. UNICEF saw Project Compassion as consistent with its basic services strategy being promoted globally which sought to enhance community participation in the programs and projects that it supports.
The evaluation conducted on the Project Compassion initiative showed marked improvement in the scope and quality of services rendered in areas with barefoot workers or unit leaders as compared to those which depended on visits of barrio workers fielded by the national government.
In 1977, during the meeting of the internaitonal board of UNICEF in Manila, the Project Compassion case was presented and field visits were conducted for the board members who were organized into small teams to have a closer look for elements of the new approach in project sites in 11 provinces.
The Project Compassion approach earned praises and endorsements from the UNICEF Board. The stage was set for a more intensive in-house review to set parameters for possible expansion and to document more fully the requirements for a replicable program under the UNICEF-Philippines First Country Programme for Children.
UNICEF became in effect an active partner of Project Compassion in the search for effective community development approaches during the martial law regime, which was not exactly friendly to initiatives involving local communities and households in the hinterlands.
More on this in the next blog.
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