UPV to host 2nd International Symposium on Vermi Technologies
The University of the Philippines Visayas will host the 2nd International Symposium on Vermi Technologies (ISVT 2009) at the UPV Auditorium and Graduate and Continuing Education Building, UP Visayas, Iloilo City campus on November 24-26, 2009.
The Symposium aims to gather teachers, researchers, students, NGOs, POs, government workers, farmers, entrepreneurs/business entities, and other enthusiasts to share and discuss knowledge, practices, and results of researches in the following areas of interest:
Earthworm ecology;
Vermiculture/vemicomposting practices in the tropics;
Earthworms in environmental management ;
Standards, quality and safety matters on vermicompost and vermimeal production and utilization;
Business prospects and economics in vermiculture and vermicomposting; and
Vermi technologies in the curriculum.
Vermiculture and eermicomposting involve breeding earthworms to provide populations and biomass and using them for converting organic waste into plant growth media. This technology is an eco-friendly, economic and enduring process to reclaim soils.
To those who are interested to present papers and posters, please call (63-33) 5086268 or email Dr. Lucy C. De Guzman at lucydeguzman_isvt09@yahoo.com.
Registration fee for professionals is Php4,000 (to include field trip to Negros Island) and Php1,500 for students (excluding field trip to Negros Island).
All interested parties are invited to attend.
ubungan enters NLA hall of fame
Wins Outstanding LGU on Literacy Award for 4th consecutive year
From a once indistinctive town, the municipality of Tubungan in the first congressional district of Iloilo is now the toast of the town at the National Literacy Awards (NLA) last September 30, 2009.
This, after Tubungan was elevated to the NLA Hall of Fame during yesterday’s awarding ceremony held at the historic Baguio City on account of its being chosen as the Outstanding Local Government Unit on Literacy for the fourth straight year. Mayor Victor Tabaquirao, who masterfully shepherded this once quiet town to what it is now—a model for innovative and functional literacy programs, was on hand to receive the award in behalf of the municipal government.
Tubungan’s meteoric rise to national prominence in the field of literacy was widely attributed to the able leadership of Mayor Tabaquirao, whose ground-breaking programs in eradicating illiteracy in his town is now a stuff of legend.
From an alarming illiteracy rate of 9.14% back in 1997 when he was not yet mayor, Tabaquirao was able to slash the figure by almost two-thirds after only a year as municipal chief executive, resulting to a more manageable 3.60% illiteracy rate for Tubungan in 2002. After three years, he further reduced the illiteracy rate in his town to under 2% with 1.95% in 2005, culminating in a measly 1.76% illiteracy rate in 2008, or a remarkable 7.38% reduction in illiteracy rate in barely eight years as town mayor, an accomplishment certainly unheard of until today.
Tabaquirao at the helm
Such a remarkable transformation from being one of the Iloilo towns with the highest illiteracy rate to having the lowest in the entire country can be attributed to a revolutionary idea that was enhanced further more by Mayor Tabaquirao’s innate talent to get things done—and with best results.
It all started with the DAL-ON TA (Delivery of Assistance Towards Literacy On New Technologies and Approaches) program, which was born in 1997 during the previous administration of former mayor Gorgonio Talledo. Originally, the program was a collaborative effort between the municipal government of Tubungan and the Department of Education-Alternative Learning System (DepEd-ALS) with the support of other stakeholders.
When Mayor Tabaquirao assumed the reins of the municipal government in 2001, he committed to continuing the laudable programs and projects of his predecessor, the DAL-ON TA program included. Barely warming in his seat in 2003, he initiated the Project CLC as a replication sub-project of DAL-ON TA, converting the old municipal building into the Community Learning Center, which served as a venue for trainings and seminars such as that on Basic Literacy and A & E Classes, Vocational and Technical Livelihood Skills Trainings (to include welding, carpentry, rebar bender, masonry, manicuring, basic and commercial cooking, catering services and spa therapy).
Eventually, Project CLC gave rise to other literacy sub-projects such as Project BAOL (Barangay Aid On Literacy), which is actually a traveling library deployed on places where there is no Barangay Learning Center, and Project AKLAT (Ang Kaalaman sa Literasiya Ay Tagumpay), a set of locally-produced literary documents and other materials aimed at augmenting the CLC.
The skills trainings’ primary target-beneficiaries are out-of-school youths, unemployed adults and even rebel returnees.
Immeasurable impact
After eight years, the impact of the said ground-breaking programs and projects spearheaded by Mayor Tabaquirao with the support of all stakeholders in the community is highly-evident in the growth and development of the town of Tubungan.
The first ‘graduates’ of the CLC’s livelihood and skills trainings in 2006, for example, easily passed the stringent requirements of the local placement agency YWA Human Resource Corporation and not long after flew to Korea to work as construction workers, rebar benders, and carpenters, easily earning P50,000 to P70,000 a month.
To date, more than a hundred multi-skilled Tubunganon workers—who only a couple of years ago sat idly in their homes as out-of-school youths and unemployed adults—are now earning hundreds of dollars in Dubai, Korea and Qatar. And they only have to thank the CLC and Mayor Tabaquirao for providing them with that once-in-a-lifetime chance to change their lives—for the best.