In the Southern Philippines, volunteers helped project participants learn methods and strategies for improved animal health. A photo story by Heifer Southern Philippines Regional Program Manager Jun Ayensa.
A team from Heifer visited successful dairy farms in Southern Philippines to better prepare them to design and implement a dairy project that will ensure success for at least 1,000 beneficiary families. “This is the first time Heifer Philippines will be implementing a dairy project, just knowing that 1,000 original families will benefit from this deepens our dedication to explore, learn and apply best practices from successful dairy practitioners,” Heifer Philippines Country Director Herc Paradiang said.
Steve Denne, chief operating officer for Heifer International, and Padma Singh, Asia South Pacific Director of Programs, visited the Philippines April 12-18, 2013, and met with office staff, partners, project participants and potential donors.
A Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) workshop was held for Heifer Southern Philippines partners, introducing a new survey tool guided by Heifer’s Theory of Change. Nilda Udarbe, community facilitator for the Developing Dairy Zones for Smallholder Farmers in Agusan del Norte Dairy project said, “Before, we used to have fewer partner families but it took us a long time to complete the consolidation process. But now with this system, once encoding is complete we can readily see the results in a more accurate and systematic way.”
Nanay Minda, affectionately known as “Mother Minda,” and her family were less affected by Typhoon Bopha than others, so she enthusiastically led the group of farm families to bounce back. She assisted HEED Foundation and Heifer in organizing groups for the distribution of emergency relief goods.
More than 100 potential partner families of Heifer Southern Philippines visited successful dairy farms and a dairy processing plant in Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental. The visiting families said that the lessons learned and best practices of dairy farmers that have been transformed into farmer businessmen and women, and the entrepreneurship of the local dairy industry in the region, has inspired them. One distinct realization from among the participants was that, “There is daily money in milk.”
Since experiencing the devastation of Typhoon Bopha in December 2012, mother and Heifer project participant Ester is unsure she can realize her dream of providing a better life for her children than what she had.
Heifer Philippines' Monitoring and Evaluation workshop titled, "What cannot be measured cannot be managed and what gets measured gets done," introduced participants to a new survey tool for project evaluations.
This Philippines dairy project is seeing positives results in the early stages with participants making careful preparations such as planting forage gardens and building a meeting area. They are set to receive dairy goats in June.
A Cornerstones Workshop designed for the 4-H Club coordinators in five provinces in the Cagayan Valley Region, Philippines. During the workshop, participants realized they are actually Passing on the Gift®−a Heifer Cornerstone−of their commitment to help in pushing 4-H youth in the right direction.
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