COTABATO CITY—A Japan-funded center here has graduated 100 Moro and tribal academicians in an American-accredited masteral program in social work, and have been assigned to key positions in government and civil-society organizations across Mindanao.
With the critical criterion of working in conflict-affected areas in southern Philippines, the Community and Family Services International (CSFI) has mentored 100 Mindanawons social workers to their two-year masteral program in complete scholarship, said Noraida A. Abdullahkarim, director for CSFI Mindanao Program.
While the preference for scholarship were Moro residents, some tribal social undergraduates who were entered in the masteral program already included tribal Tedurays of Sultan Kudarat, Manobos of Bukidnon and Subanens of Zamboanga Peninsula. “There were more than 10 of them already,” she said.
The CSFI previously held classes in restaurants and other private establishments with conference rooms until 2009 when the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) granted its proposal to put up a P3-million, two-story building inside its 1,000-square-meter compound just outside downtown here to start a more conducive learning program.
The masteral program accepted 35 scholars for the two-year program on social work and for six years since 2009, has graduated 105 social workers.
The masteral academic program is culled and supported by the Catholic University of America (CUA), making its masteral degree automatically acquire an international accreditation. “All our graduates are included in the alumni of the CUA,” Abdullahkarim said. The Jica-funded physical center has also helped the CSFI sustain its masteral program, but also its social and humanitarian capability trainings of non-governmental and civil-society workers to equip them with the necessary institutional skills in disaster and emergency response, reproductive health and community service.
The center had been catering to an average of two to three seminars from partner non-governmental organizations and the income used to sustain its daily operation.
Emma D. Naga, CSFI administrative assistant, said the income was adequate to allow the CSFI to maintain the basic facilities for trainings and accommodation “with enough to spare for other additional activities such the repainting of the building.” The center could accommodate as many as 50 persons. The sessions they hosted would last two to three days.
“All the accommodation rooms have their own Wi-fi [wireless fidelity] connections,” Naga added.
The provision of a center to provide a masteral academic program for social workers helped churn out the needed social workers for an island regularly hit by natural and man-made disasters, especially central Mindanao and the southwestern Mindanao island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.
Social workers were commonly found wanting during evacuations to escape sporadic fighting in the past and the occurrence of flashfloods and landslides.