It takes one idea, one step, one move to make one’s dream possible. Such is the case of an initiative by the field staff in the municipality of Cajidiocan, Romblon to do more than what their job requires.
Ensuring the children’s perfect attendance in school is one task the staff has, but ensuring that each of them has enough school supplies to aid learning is what they envision to achieve.
The field staff and partner-stakeholders in the municipality came up with the idea of creating a portfolio for every child. ‘One child – one portfolio’ is a scheme they believe will help engage every stakeholder especially the household beneficiaries in ensuring their children’s future.
Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program has been implemented in the province of Romblon since 2009 with San Jose as the only municipality included with 700 household beneficiaries registered. As of December 2013, all municipalities were now included in the program with a total of 16, 751 household beneficiaries.
The program has condilitionalities the beneficiaries are required to comply. In ensuring that the aim of the program is carried out among beneficiaries, the field staff in Cajidiocan, Romblon conduct regular monitoring visits with the beneficiaries and partner-stakeholders. In their monitoring visits with the partner-stakeholders particularly with the schools, they check the performances of the children beneficiaries as well as the issues and concerns of the teachers towards Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries.
In most of the schools that were visited, teachers noticed that even though beneficiaries receive cash grants from the program, some of the children beneficiaries still do not have enough school supplies. They said that there were instances during the middle of the class where some children beneficiaries have to ask for paper, pencil or ballpen. Thus, the teachers shell out their own money to give these school supplies.
Upon knowing the situation, field staff conducted home visits to the beneficiaries to remind them of their co-responsibilities in the program and that they should not only ensure the attendance of their children but also ensure that they have enough supplies for their education. They also recommended that they should have reserve school supplies for their children just in case they ran out of paper, pencil, ballpen etc. The Pantawid Pamilya field staff thought that they can create a strategy where they will not only monitor the attendance of the children but also their well-being, and better start with ensuring an enough school supplies for each of them.
The ‘one child – one portfolio’ strategy is a scheme wherein parents will buy extra school supplies for their children after payout. The field staff then discussed the strategy with various stakeholders during the Municipal Action Team (MAT) and Municipal Advisory Committee (MAC) meetings, these are meetings wherein partner-implementers and the local government unit convene to tackle issues and concerns to improve implementation of the program.
Some of the beneficiaries started to do this strategy in Cantagda Elementary School on the last quarter of 2013 to see if it will be effective and true enough it was believed to be effective by the various stakeholders.
Ms. Neraida Rabino, a parent-beneficiary shared that this strategy became useful to them. She said, “Malaking bagay po sa amin na mga magulang dahil kung mauubusan ng gamit yung mga anak namin ay may makukuha agad sila doon sa school. Malaking tulong ito sa amin dahil may stock na ang mga anak namin na gamit nila.”
During the MAT meeting last December 2013, the committee members decided to replicate the strategy in other schools for the coming 2014-2015 school year. The Pantawid Pamilya field staff started attending PTA meetings to inform and suggest to the parents and teachers the ‘one child – one portfolio’ strategy. They also encouraged the parent beneficiaries through Family Development Sessions (FDS) and they had heard positive feedback regarding the strategy.
As suggested by the teachers, the ‘one child – one portfolio’ strategy will fully take place this June 2014. Cabinets where the portfolios will be kept will also be built by the parents during Brigada Eskwela. Parents, children and teachers are looking forward to the success of this strategy and hope for its replication in other municipalities.
Pantawid Pamilya provides cash grants to household beneficiaries to help them meet their needs in education, health and nutrition. The program serves as an investment to human development and the ‘one child – one portfolio’ strategy is an investment in ensuring the cash grants are used accordingly for every child’s future, even just for a simple gesture of reserving compiling school supplies for future use.
