Our Work - Special Projects

Project Consuelo

A partnership project with Consuelo Zobel Alger Foundation under its Life Skills+ Program to implement child rights awareness and protection efforts involving schools, children, and their families.

Project CONSUELO (Consolidating and Updating Educational Learning Opportunities for Child Protection) is a 3-year project that continues the gains of the Flalok Project with an added value: child rights awareness and protection.

The project supports the belief that upholding the rights of children (as outlined in the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child) in the education sector with parents’ direct involvement creates an ideal environment where children can grow without fear—free from harm and abuse. This protects and upholds the inherent dignity of children as persons with evolving capacities and maturity.

Year 1 (2019) Project Components

In 2019, Project CONSUELO involved three components:

1. Contextualization of Consuelo Foundation’s proprietary flipchart on Child Protection to Cebuano, Blaan and Maguindanaon

Project CONSUELO replicated the technology of Consuelo Foundation through translation and contextualization of Consuelo Foundation’s proprietary flipchart on child protection in three local major dialects: Cebuano, Blaan and Maguindanaon.

Contextualized Materials

172

Blaan

32

Cebuano

32

Maguindanaon

Schools Distributed

2. Teaching of the localized Child Protection during Flalok classes and reproduction of child-friendly Flalok Big Books and materials

1,296

Flalok Big Books

603

Grade 2
Learner Materials

603

Grade 1
Learner Materials

32

Alphabet Charts

32

Number Charts

Flalok materials distributed and used by 631 Grade 1 and Grade 2 learners in 15 Blaan partner schools within Sarangani Province

3. Development of module on parent mentoring and child protection

Parent Mentoring is a family and community initiative developed by CLAFI that seeks to strengthen families and remind parents of their primary role in their children’s education. To address the pressing problem on child abuse, Project CONSUELO integrated a discussion on child rights and protection in Parent Leaders/Parent Mentoring Module and sessions.

Through Project CONSUELO, CLAFI developed a Parent Leaders Training and Parent Mentoring Module that contained 10 key commitments of parents towards their children. These commitments also serve as themes for the 10 Parent Mentoring sessions contained in the Module.

The Parent Leaders/Parent Mentoring Module was used in 56 Parent Mentoring Sessions attended by 1,875 parents (each representing 1 family).

4. Project CONSUELO also helped secure the birth certificates of 122 unregistered children in Sarangani Province.

Year 2 (2020)

Year 2 of the project continued the Year 1 activities (implementation and monitoring), and implemented a new component: the development of the Right PALS Module.

  • Right PALS (Peer-Assisted Learning Strategy on Child Rights) teaches child rights and protection in a friend-to-friend manner using the 15-session Module developed with DepEd Sarangani and Consuelo Foundation. This is implemented in 30 schools in Sarangani Province through the student council.

  • The use of the Cebuano contextualized flipchart on child rights was also expanded to 13 schools in Iligan, Davao and General Santos. A Chavacano version was also developed and implemented in 8 schools in Zamboanga (Kinder to Grade 6 classes).

  • To address the face-to-face learning restrictions in the pandemic, digital versions of the materials are being produced.

  • The project also successfully registered the birth of 223 children.

  • Parent mentoring was redesigned to focus on building resilient families amidst the ongoing pandemic. This taught 1,030 parents (one parent per participating family) the basic COVID safety practices — such as the use of face masks, washing of hands, and the intake of vitamins and supplements. The parents were also taught how to sew face masks by hand and were provided health and hygiene kits.

  • A total of 63 handwashing facilities were distributed to schools and isolation units in Sarangani Province and General Santos.

Year 3 (2021)

For its third year, Project Consuelo continued activities from Year 2 with a few additional efforts.

  • The project continued the implementation of Right PALS in 35 schools in Sarangani, 8 schools in Zamboanga, 7 schools in Iligan, 3 schools in Davao, and 3 more schools in General Santos.

  • In coordination with DepEd Sarangani and the Office of the Indigenous Peoples Mandatory Representative (IPMR), the project also contextualized Consuelo Foundation’s proprietary flipchart towards the Tboli communities of Sarangani Province. This contextualized flipchart was distributed to 6 schools in the area, and used in the Mother Tongue-Based MultiLingual Education (MTBMLE), Araling Panlipunan, and Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao classes.

  • The contextualized Tboli flipchart, along with the Maguindanaon and Cebuano flipchart was also reproduced and distributed to 8 Blaan schools in General Santos, as well as 7 Maguindanaon and 5 Cebuano schools in DepEd-Sarangani.

  • The project also successfully registered the birth of 332 children.

  • Beyond this, the project also established the Community Convergence Child and Women Rights Center in Sitio Dabu, Barangay Nomoh, Maasim, a catchment area of 7 communities. This center will be the venue for learning sessions on children and women’s rights using a 13-session guide based on the Right PALS Module. These sessions will be facilitated by community parent-leaders.

  • In partnership with the Municipal Health Office-Maasim, basic health services will also be provided in the center.