Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Sec. Judy M. Taguiwalo today said that the DSWD is set to launch its Pilot Convergence Project as its contributions to the Duterte’s administration’s anti-poverty program.

“The DSWD is stepping up its efforts to provide livelihood opportunities for Filipinos. What we’ve done is to unite the different livelihood and safety net programs of the department, and we want to make them more accessible to poor communities,” she said.

Sec. Taguiwalo explained the DSWD’s Pilot Convergence Project has many components, but among the first to be launched are the pilot nutrition and livelihood interventions through a milk supplementation program under the Supplementary Feeding Program (SFP) and Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP).

“These are in partnership with the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC). We have already signed a Memorandum of Agreement to facilitate this initiative and the pilot area chosen is Bukidnon.  The Pilot Convergence Project has two components — the Milk Supplementary Component and the Livelihood Component – and we hope that both components will be beneficial to our kababayans and their children,” she said. The DSWD has begun to release funds through transfer of funds to the PCC for the milk supplementation of children in the pilot CDC areas in the amount of thirteen million three hundred twenty four thousand and eighty pesos (Php13,324,080).

The Milk Supplementary Component entails the provision of milk and other dairy products to Child Development Centers(CDC). The dairy products produced by the PCC and farmer communities engaged in carabao-based enterprises will be included in the food served in the Supplementary Feeding Program (SFP) for the pilot CDCs. Under the program 200ml of milk will be provided to every child daily for 120 days.

The milk supplementation component will be implemented simultaneously in addition to the provision of regular meals (hot meals or alternative meals) of children enrolled in the feeding program and in the CDCs. There will be no separate milk supplementation schedule from the feeding schedule for regular hot meals or alternative meals.  The milk supplementation component will be implemented for 120 days from November 2016 to May 2017. In the province of Bukidnon, for instance, a total of 186 CDCs with 7,321 number of children is targeted for the project. The municipalities that will participate are Damulog, San Fernando, and Maramag Bukidnon.

The Livelihood Component, on the other hand, refers to the provision of seed capital and/or the provision of skills training within 120 days to farmers. Farmers who are beneficiaries of DSWD’s SLP will be partners/suppliers for the needs of the Milk Supplementation.  The first part of the livelihood component is the dispersal of carabaos.  Its pilot implementation began this November and will continue until May 2017.

“We intend for this to help generate employment and develop into a profitable enterprise for farmer communities,” Sec. Taguiwalo said.

“We are determined to empower Filipinos so they fight poverty and improve their means of livelihood. We continue to reach out and coordinate with other government institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs) and other private groups to put together ways to improve DSWD’s Convergence Initiative. What we want is for the DSWD to be the voice of poor Filipinos in the Duterte administration and to promote sustainable, long-term reforms that will benefit the poor. A large majority of Filipinos are farmers and workers—so the poverty reductions programs we implement should reflect their circumstances even as these programs address their need,” Sec. Taguiwalo concluded. #