Republic Act No 9262 of 2004 or the Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children Act provides protection for abused women and their children against their partners, former male partners or those they were/are dating. Although this is a welcome change, its implementation and impact have not been very extensive especially, for the very women who should be benefitting from it.
Through funds coming from the European Union’s European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), ASSIST partnered with the Women’s Crisis Center (WCC) and the National Network of Family Violence Prevention Programs (NNFVPP) for a project entitled “USE RA 9262 – Undertaking Survivors’ Experience in Accessing RA 9262.” The project aimed to establish a monitoring system on RA 9262 anchored on women’s experiences and on the enhanced capabilities of non-government organizations handling domestic violence, leading to the effective implementation of the law that works for female victims/survivors in reclaiming their rights.
The project was able to accomplish a number of activities during its run. Surveys and forums were conducted to raise awareness and determine the root causes of violations – an Alternative Monitoring System Portal was created and became a platform of information exchange between stakeholders & gauged the implementation rate of RA 9262. Capacity building trainings were also conducted to ensure proper use of the system and strengthen institutions. Furthermore, a gap assessment report, a training manual for service providers and a web portal were released through which region-based advocates encoded details on VAWC cases.
In 2008, the Philippines National Police (PNP) reported that there has been a 21% increase in the number of cases of Violence Against Women (VAW) from that in 2007. Although the Philippines enacted several laws against Violence Against Women, access to and full implementation of these laws leave much to be desired. In August 2009, the government passed another Act – the “Magna Carta of Women (RA9710)”, with the expectation for it to be an umbrella legal enactment to promote gender equality and ensure the protection of women. The Magna Carta calls for training on human rights and gender sensitivity for all government personnel involved and all local government units (LGUs), and to establish a violence against women (VAW) desk in every barangay to ensure that VAW cases are fully addressed in a gender-responsive manner.
ASSIST, in partnership with WFS (Women’s Feature Service Philippines), WomenLEAD (Women’s Legal Education, Advocacy & Defense Foundation Inc.) and WCC (Women’s Crisis Center) collaborated to produce the “Justice and Healing Project” with the main goal of educating & capacitating the various components of the judicial system to be able to deliver rights-based and gender sensitive services with respect to VAW cases. The activities carried out to achieve these include barangay forums, stakeholder mapping and training for public-private prosecutors, paralegal and legal practitioners on the issue at hand. Moreover, the project included the development of both Legal Monographs on Gender Legal Issues and Protocol for Legal Service Provision.
Through the sessions provided by the project, NGOs are now better equipped & united to offer legal & psycho-social assistance to female victims. They are in constant dialogue and have worked closely with the government for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. Prosecutors, lawyers and other members of the judiciary are sensitized & capacitated to adopt a gender-sensitive, victim-centric, CEDAW compliant, inquiry process while local authorities, the police, and communities at barangay level are united and continuously working towards a violence-free barangay.
The Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS) is a tool introduced by UNDP and DILG to local government units to diagnose the extent and causes of poverty in an area, to help in formulating policies and programs, to aid in identifying target beneficiaries and to facilitate assessment of the impact of those policies and programs. In Misamis Oriental, which registered a 28.5% poverty incidence, 14 municipalities have started to adopt and implement the CBMS to attain poverty reduction. However, those municipalities cannot fully utilize the system due to lack of capacity and resources to validate and process the data into a development planning tool with a geographic information system.
Jointly funded by STEAG State Power Inc. and DEG, EMPOWER aimed to achieve economic growth in the region by enabling local government units to acquire necessary technical skills and know-how in utilizing development tools. The project addressed the gaps in fully utilizing development tools particularly, in transferring and sustaining practical knowledge in using CBMS and GIS.
The project’s focus was on updating the database and information system of the Provincial Planning Office of Misamis Oriental and Cagayan de Oro City Planning Office. Six municipalities from Misamis Oriental namely, Tagoloan, Jasaan, El Salvador, Medina, Opol, and Laguindingan, had been designated to be pilot areas for CBMS implementation considering the areas’ strategic importance to the industrialization and eco-tourism potential of Northern Mindanao. The works under this project include Training and Assessment of CBMS implementation, Determination of GIS requirements and correspondent GIS Technical Trainings, CBMS and GIS integration, data processing, analysis and publication of case studies.
The construction boom in Vietnam, especially in the urban areas, is providing more business opportunities for the elevator/escalator (mobility) industry. For a fast developing country like Vietnam, raising the awareness of workplace safety & workplace productivity (efficiency) can be considered as a crucial part for sustainable growth and align local workforce standard to that of the developed world.
ASSIST, in partnership with Schindler Vietnam has collaborated on a project called ELEVATE Vietnam whose objective is to raise awareness and transfer knowledge on safe and energy efficient use and deployment of elevators and escalators to minimize health risks that result from malfunction and incorrect use. Activities related to the project consist of collection, assessment and evaluation of current training program, subsequent actions to improve the training curricula, creation of training materials with support from Schindler experts and parallel translation, the identification of representatives for each target group of the project (public users, suppliers, customers, relevant ministry/departments/agencies, government officials, universities and students) and conduction of training on safety and energy efficiency.
The project aims to achieve these lasting impacts: improvements in the training of technical workforce will bring benefits in terms of higher employment rate, fewer accidents, and an enabled private sector. The trainers will be better capacitated and connected to provide relevant and targeted training. Moreover, the project is expected to benefit the wider society as end-users of elevators and escalators, which would now be safer to use and continuously maintained for lesser disruptions. With 50% of the work done, it aims to deliver before the end of 2018, the successful establishment of training courses and execution of the awareness campaign and training on the safe and efficient use of elevators and escalators.
Vietnam has approximately 53 million workers, 83.5 percent of which are manual laborers without any vocational certificates (especially, in the elevator services industry). A report by World Bank shows that Vietnam currently ranks on the bottom half of the rankings on ASEAN labor force development.
ASSIST, together with KONE Vietnam LLC, developed a project called PROMPT to improve and promote technical training in Vietnam through a dual education model and advance safety and quality of testing and maintaining elevator service. It aims at motivating students and existing workforce to think and focus on the quality of their labor, in a sense, becoming technicians instead of just manual workforce as mechanics. The goal of the project is to enhance the skills and attitudes of technical workers, attempting a shift towards taking pride in quality or work and skills improvement.
The project team has commenced working on the development of the training curricula based on the existing agenda and improved it according to a collected feedback from potential employers of the students in the private sector. A complete needs and requirements assessment will be conducted to evaluate the biggest gaps in education and enhance the employability of the graduates. For sustainability, the partner training academy will be capacitated to run the improved training program by training their trainers. The same course will be targeting trainers from other technical schools as well and include senior experts in the field, who can continue with in-company advance training programs. Currently, a training program for electricians with sessions within the private sector is being implemented. Additionally, the KONE Training Center at the College has commenced development.
The standards of work health and safety were brought to the forefront of the public eye after the collapse of the Rana Plaza Building in Bangladesh in April 2013. The commercial structure housed a garment factory and its collapse resulted in numerous injuries and a death toll of 1,127. In the aftermath, it called for improved working conditions and better compliance with factory safety standards.
The IFC Fire and Life Safety Risk Profiling (FLSRP) Project aimed to support the Better Work Programme – a partnership project of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – in its objective to improve labour conditions and compliance of standards by participating garment and footwear factories in developing countries. The project aided Better Work in reviewing its tools and approaches to assess and remedy fire and building safety issues in each of the countries in which it operates; ultimately to prevent or mitigate the impact of future incidents like the 2013 disaster in Bangladesh.
FLSRP involved the conduct of sectoral-level risk assessments on fire and building safety in garment and footwear factories to develop respective risk profiles for Cambodia, Haiti, Indonesia, Jordan, Lesotho, Nicaragua, and Vietnam. Major activities included research and desk review, benchmarking, report review, site selection and inspections, stakeholder discussions, data compilation and lessons-learnt workshops in each of the target countries.
The percentage of the Cambodian population with access to electricity is very low, at 56.1% in 2014. A lack of electricity affects society in numerous ways: children find it more difficult to study, families are unable to properly prepare food, communities cannot conduct social gatherings and the overall productivity of the country suffers. To meet the growing demand for affordable and accessible electricity, it is essential to adopt alternative sources of electricity production.
Considering the challenges faced by Cambodian communities, ASSIST is working to implement the Energy Efficiency Initiative and increase the capacity of distributors to create and support a market for Philips’ solar systems. The Energy Efficiency Initiative is a project organized by ASSIST, DEG, and Philips, to provide LED solar systems to electricity-deprived regions in Cambodia and build the capacity of local actors to support and maintain LED solar systems. Local stakeholders, such as public authorities, community representatives, and NGOs, will collaborate and coordinate the capacity building of communities, the implementation and maintenance of Philips’ solar products and LED Solar Lighting Solutions.
By the end of the 18-month period of implementation, the Energy Efficiency Initiative will have reached 510 households and 30 public spaces; including playgrounds, classrooms and community centers. The target communities will enjoy the benefits of high-quality and cost-effective lighting that is reliable and robust, easy to install and maintain, matches climate factors with minimum environmental impact, ultimately providing a better standard of life, be it day or night.
