Mayor Ernesto Evangelista has inaugurated last Friday, March 6, a P200,000-worth of Community Food Center in a remote Lumad community in Sitio Balite, Barangay Magwawa, Santo Tomas, Davao del Norte.
Evangelista said the construction of the Community Food Center aims to help improve the lives of the Lumad residents in the area.
“The establishment will serve as facility for their farm produced. On top of this, it will function as a livelihood training facility and a learning center,” Evangelista said.
Evangelista has expressed hope that with the establishment of the Community Food Center, Lumad residents would be able to improve their food security by increasing their farm productivity.
“That can be done if the small farms were consolidated to achieve economies of scale. This will improve the critical aspects of production, among others,” he said.
Alienated by neglect
Evangelista explained that more developmental projects would be poured in barangays that were “neglected” for the longest years, citing Sitio Balite, Barangay Magwawa of which he branded as one of the geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDA) identified by the municipal government.
“We calibrating our programs to really include our Lumad brothers and sisters in our development plans. The Lumad communities are part of it where they claimed to have been neglected for so long,” he said.
TESDA trainings
Joy Gonzaga, the local economic and investment promotions officer, disclosed that Lumad residents in the area were recipient of several TESDA trainings offered by the Evangelista administration under its #BagongSantoTomas poverty alleviation programs.
She said that these trainings would capacitate the Lumad residents especially the women to make themselves productive by baking pastries and bread that can be sold in their community.
Gonzaga also said the Community Food Center is a much-needed facility for the economic progress in the Lumad community including the TESDA trainings for the residents.
GAD funded project
Meanwhile, Municipal Administrator and lawyer Elisa Elisa Evangelista-Lapiña said the project was funded under the Gender and Development program of the municipal government.
The Community Food Center is expected to encourage more Lumad women to participate and stand to benefit in livelihood and entrepreneurial activities by sustaining Lumad women and capacitating them in entrepreneurship, according to Lapiña.