SUGPAT team flies to Northern Samar for project management workshop

Last December 13 to December 15, 2021, the SUGPAT team, together with the Education Officer of UNICEF Philippines, Avelino Mejia Jr, flew to Northern Samar to conduct a 2-day Project Management Course Workshop with representatives from various organizations from the province attending the workshop.

The Project Management Course Workshop is a 2-day workshop designed to teach the participants the basics of project management. The workshop was held at JS Building, Catarman, Northern Samar last December 13 and December 15, 2021.

The workshop was led by Jerome Montes, SUGPAT Project Officer. The workshop was participated by different organizations and agencies in the province, namely: Department of Education – Northern Samar Division Office, Diocese of Catarman, Sangguaniang Kabataan, Plan International, United Church for Christ of the Philippines, Northern Samar Colleges, Catarman Local Youth Development Office, and Northern Samar Provincial Youth Development Office.

The workshop opened the discussion for what the participants think are the aspirations, obstacles, and resources of the youth in the province. The participants also tracked the root cause problem of the youth in the province by doing a problem tree analysis, then helped design solutions by doing stakeholder mapping, environmental scanning, PEST analysis, and SWOT analysis.

After series of lessons given to the participants, they concluded the need of the province to have a Youth Development Alliance since the problem they experience is the lack of referral mechanism in which their youth could not access.

According to Blesilda Ong, one of the participant in the workshop, “Maganda ang processing na ginagawa natin because we’re tackling the very root cause of the problem here in the province.”

Montes also inculcated the phrase “to always have a superior strategy even with inferior resources,” inspiring our participants to create projects for the youth despite having little resources and still effectively create projects for the youth if they come up with better strategies in their projects.

“This is a success, despite being small, we still had a very rich insights and discussions,” Avelino Mejia, UNICEF Philippines Education Officer said. He continued, “Sana magpatuloy tayo sa project na ito. This is just the start of the many interactions. We will be having more discussions next year.”

Meeting with Northern Samar Governor Ongchuan

On December 14, 2021, the SUGPAT team, together with Ave Mejia from UNICEF Philippines, met with the provincial governor of Northern Samar, Hon. Edwin Ongchuan, in a courtesy call. The meeting were also joined by the Provincial Social Welfare and Development Officer, Provincial Adminstrator and the Provincial Youth Development Officer of Catarman.

The aim of the meeting was to bolster the relationship of UNICEF and SUGPAT with the provincial government agencies of Northern Samar. During the meeting, the SUGPAT team reiterated the importance of having a youth development alliance in the province by citing similar experiences from SUGPAT’s previous youth development alliance project in Zamboanga del Norte.

The initial outcome of the Project Management Course Workshop has also been shared to Governor Onchuan during the meeting. The meeting ended with Governor Ongchuan committing in giving a thorough look into the SUGPAT’s proposal of establishing a youth development alliance in the province. ##