Save the Children is 2007 POPDEV awardee
The Save the Children, a non-governmental organization, copped the 2007 Rafael M. Salas Population and Development Award for its exemplary effort in the integration of population, health and environment (PHE) in 11 coastal municipalities in the provinces of Iloilo, Guimaras and Antique.
This the second consecutive win for Western Visayas. The 2005 Rafael M. Salas POPDEV Award for local government executive category was won by former Concepcion Mayor and now Presidential Assistant for Western Visayas Raul Bañias. The award is given every two years with different categories.
The Save the Children started its PHE program in October 1999 through the People and Environment Co-existence Development Project (PESCODEV). It has its center in northern Iloilo and Guimaras.
The PESCODEV project primarily focused on family planning, quality of care, sustainable resource management practice and coastal rehabilitation. The project not only caters on the improvement of people's health. It also deals on the protection of marine and coastal ecosystems where they basically get their living.
In the project areas, Save the Children targeted couples who are not practicing family planning and adolescent. The adolescents were given proper information
in order to empower them to make reproductive decisions.
The Rafael M. Salas Population and Development Award aims to give recognition to individuals or institutions for their outstanding achievements and contribution in the field of population and development.
The award likewise aims to perpetuate the legacy of Rafael M. Salas, a native of Bago City, Negros Occidental. He was the former Executive Secretary during the Marcos regime. Salas, later joined the United Nations and was appointed the first Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the rank of Under Secretary General.
In the Philippines he established the Commission on Population and recommended to Pres. Marcos the promulgation of a population policy and program to manage the country's high population growth.