The Department of Agrarian Reform in Aklan operationalized its Gender and Development Focal Team and women’s desk as it lines up its activities for the next six months. To mark the agency’s Women’s Month celebration, the team held a planning-workshop attended by twenty stakeholders on March 6, 2009 at the DAR provincial office.
The DAR Ladies Association-Samahan ng Kababaihan sa Agraryo, Inc. (DARLA-SAKA) through its president, Leah T. Oquendo reported that the group was able to extend medical and relief assistance to the farmer victims of last years’ Typhoon Frank. DAR is also holding a feeding program for 50 mal-nourished children at the Timbaban ARC in Maldalag, Aklan in partnership with the Archbishop Gabriel M. Reyes Memorial Foun-dation. The team also plans to adopt two women organizations in the agrarian reform communities to highlight this year’s theme:" Babae: Yaman ka ng Bayan". The adopt an ARC (Agrarian reform community) program aims to encourage and support women to venture into a more meaningful economic activities and enterprise development.
Atty. Daniel Y. Martelino, Chairperson of the Provincial Gender and Development Focal Point of DAR-Aklan, maintains that the office will always put gender and develop-ment concerns a top priority as it continues to pursue equity and empowerment among its agrarian reform beneficiaries and DAR employees. As such, a forum to tackle issues on the rural women, their rights and other concerns will also be conducted.
DAR-Aklan is a strong advocate of the elimination of violence against women (VAW) and children in Aklan through its active participation to educate and raise the communities’ awareness of the cycle of violence and understanding of the so-called gender based violence in the homes. DAR Aklan actively joins the local chapter of the Men Opposed to Violence Everywhere, Inc. (MOVE, Inc.-Aklan). /MP
No comments:
Post a Comment