The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) through its Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP) has released P154,160,000 to fund the livelihood projects of some 21,462 survivors of Typhoon Yolanda in Northern Cebu.

SLP is a community-based capacity building effort that seeks to improve the program participants’ socio-economic status.

Under the SLP, the Cash for Building Livelihood Assets (CBLA) and Livelihood Assistance Grant (LAG) was implemented.

The CBLA provides immediate cash assistance to affected families in exchange for community-based labor to repair, rehabilitate, and/or develop physical and natural resources that will be used for productive and profitable microenterprises.

For this project, each worker (one qualified worker per family) is provided with a daily allowance equivalent to the existing regional daily wage for a maximum of 15 days.

The following are examples of projects funded under the CBLA:

* Development, rebuilding, or rehabilitation of agriculture and coastal resources
* Development and/or rehabilitation of common service facilities such as trading posts, milling centers, solar dryers, etc.
* Development or rehabilitation of physical assets to open up access to natural assets where the former is necessary to bring out the products of poor families to the market.
* Protection of productive livelihood assets such as mangrove planting/rehabilitation, tree planting, etc.

In Northern Cebu, beneficiaries were engaged in the rehabilitation of mangroves, maintenance of communal gardens and pig pens, set-up of sugar mill (muscovado), and construction of small fishing boats.

On the other hand, the LAG aims to strengthen the resiliency of affected communities in managing disaster-resilient, market-driven, and resource-based livelihood through the provision of livelihood grants. These grants could be used to establish common livelihood facilities, conduct livelihood skills training, and provide start-up capital, and will be managed by
SLP Associations or other accredited organizations. Under LAG, the funds were transferred to the local government units.

Projects undertaken by beneficiaries under LAG included Bigasan ng Barangay, Farming and Trading, Hog Production, General Merchandise and Basic Hardware Supply, and skills training for swine fattening.

The 16 towns that received funding for the implementation of CBLA and LAG were:

DSWD Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman said that the provision of livelihood assistance was among the priority recovery and rehabilitation efforts undertaken by the Department to ensure that ‘Yolanda’ survivors will regain economic stability. ###