Unlike those people who live in the urban areas where there are abundant of opportunities and unlimited access to basic social services, people who are in far flung areas like the barrios, sitios and in the provinces struggles to even reach one.

In a busy city atmosphere where most people tend to neglect the importance of having a healthy lifestyle, villagers of barangay Guling in the municipality of Guipos in Zamboanga del Sur has been longing to have a decent health facility.

Though Guling have a health center made of wood, but it’s too small to cater the entire barangay. Aside from the small space, the place could not hold when people would crowd in especially during rainy season. It is always a pitiful sight for pregnant women and mothers with infants who would do check-ups at the center.

Residents endured years of inconveniences because they had no choice but to go on with their regular visits since they needed the said services.

What a time when Kalahi-CIDSS NCDDP was introduced and implemented in the Municipality, given the limited resources of the barangay, the residents of Guling especially Aling Juana was hopeful that they could do something despite not having a title or a position for the benefit of the community.

Aling Juana Pelarca, a 55-year old woman and a mother of five (5) is a proud volunteer of Kalahi-CIDSS. She works in the farm together with her husband and would raise farm animals for additional income.

As a volunteer of the program, she serves as a member of the Project Preparation Team, who’s in charge of preparing sub-project concept form.

She didn’t expect that she would be preparing project proposals and admitted that is wasn’t such an easy task, but she tried her best because she appreciated the process of having to include ordinary people like them in the implementation of the sub-projects and that she really wanted to see a tangible project out of her participation that she could pass on to her grandchildren’s children.

In August 2016, the Barangay Health Station sub-project was completed.

The community was elated that finally all their hard work has paid off, and most importantly it has opened their barangay to an improved access to health services.

Now that the structure was completed, Aling Juana and the rest of the volunteers felt relieved, “murag ang problema sa katawhan sa among komunidad, murag mawala-wala kay gumikan dili na sila muari sa lungsod magpacheck-up”.

(It has lessened the problem of the people in the community because they no longer have to travel to Poblacion for check-up) she said.

With the new Health Station, attending to patients in times of emergency has become easier, infants and children no longer have to suffer from extreme heat in times of immunization, and pregnant women will no longer have to travel to distant health center to give birth and it will help the villagers save money that they don’t need to worry for the transportation since they have one nearby.

Aling Juana added “nakanindot pud nga naka-on duty na pirmi ang nurse, naa na pud ready ang BHW”, (It’s good that we have a nurse on-duty regularly and the BHW as well).

KC-NCDDP is one of the poverty reduction programs of DSWD that uses the community driven development (CDD) approach in implementing projects that aim to provide the community access to basic services. It is the expanded implementation of the previous program Kalahi-CIDSS. This enables the communities and the local government units in the said areas to implement disaster responsive or preventive projects that may include fast rehabilitation of destroyed infrastructures and livelihoods projects. ### (JGA)