433 families in Cebu Province avail of DSWD-7’s livelihood program

CEBU CITY, Philippines- A total of 443 families in Cebu Province, whose source of income were affected by fire, received cash assistance from the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Central (DSWD-7) under the agency’s Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP).

Aracelli Quiel, SLP focal person, said each of the families received up to a P20,000 cash under the said program, the implementation of which was in full blast last year.

The beneficiaries were fire victims, whose source of livelihood or businesses, were affected by recent fires.

Quiel said they already disbursed as much as P8 million for the program’s implementation in Cebu Province alone.  Of the identified beneficiaries here, only 47 are yet to receive their share of the grant.

“So in totallity, naa na tay 490 nga mga beneficiaries. Mga fire disater ni silang tanan, unya ni-worth ni siya ug P9 million,” Quiel said.

(We have a total of 490 beneficiaries.  All of them are fire victims and the program’s total allocation is P9 million.)

Quiel said that at least 79 families in Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental also received the cash assistance which totalled to P1.5 million.

But Quiel clarified that the cash assistance program is not only intended for fire victims. She said that families that were affected by other disasters, may it be natural or man-made, can also avail of the program.

The beneficiaries were made to undergo evaluation by the municipal or city Social Welfare and Development Office in coordination with DSWD-7’s project development officials who are assigned in the different local government units (LGUs).

Beneficiaries were asked to submit a proposal on how they intend to use the cash assistance and were made to undergo a seminar.  Upon receipt of the cash aid, they were told of the need to submit receipts from their purchases for monitoring purposes. / dcb