Our new work place over the next 4 weeks will be in the City Hall building. We have been given a room to share between 3 of the Groups (us, the Traffic team and the Police Team ). We will work there when we are not meeting with our client. It is tight quarters but since we are all coming and going for meetings it will work.
We had spent the last few hours on the Monday afternoon meeting some of the staff at CSWD to learn more about what they do in the office and the processes involved. Judith had presented an overview of all of the areas their department touches on Monday and it is a very extensive list. The office provides assistance for health and medical bills, burial, small business loans and then a wide range of social services (adoptions, youth issues, domestic issues etc...)
It is agreed on Tuesday that Judith and Paulo Velasco (City Planning) will take us around to tour 2 or 3 of the barangays in the morning. A barangay (formerly called barrio), is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a village, district or ward. There are 18 of these in Santa Rosa and going from 100,000 people to 300,000 over the past 20 years is not without growing pains. There are lots of services to provide for the growing amount of people coming in to the area and limited money to deal with the demands.
Many people come looking for work because Santa Rosa is considered a growth area and has some bigger business in the general outskirts(Toyota, Coca Cola ) but certainly not every one has success in finding what they are looking for.
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| Some roof damage at a local business from the recent storm. |
The road are very narrow the further we go in to the barangays. The community is packed in quite tightly...there is not a lot of space and the places are built together alternating between residences and businesses....sometimes both. It is about a lane and a half wide and most of the vehicles are motorized tri-cycles, bikes and anything that has wheels. It is a different life.
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| There is a lot of activity going on. Micro businesses within. |
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| Various modes of transport |
Paulo and Judith take us to the lake to show us where some fish farming is taking place and a planned port may eventually be built
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| Judith Hasil, The Team, Waya and Paulo |
So, it was good to get to see a lot of the area. We were able to see 3 of the closest barangays and there were 15 we did not see. There are lot's of people who potentially need the help of the services provided by Judith's team. It is also easy to see that a visit to the CSWD from these areas is not an insignificant commitment, to be used only when needed.
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