For The Bohol Tribune
In This Our Journey
NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS
For the past two
weeks, I was able to finalize and submit three project proposals to potential
donors after a period spent in research and consultations on how best to
respond at municipal and barangay or household levels to a desperate situation
considered by many as a tragedy waiting to happen.
These proposals are
meant to address a messy situation where hundreds of identified and
self-confessed drug addicts and pushers have been left unattended while
supposedly in the care of households and local communities.
Let me share these proposals with you in this
week’s column. I still nourish this hope that new leaders will arise from local
communities to push for these projects while waiting for the big national
program to come with ample resources, possibly with the PHP1 billion pesos donated
by San Miguel Corp. to the government for the building of drug rehab centers.
These proposed
projects, which can be considered small-scale but high-impact projects, are as follows:
1) A facility with
the generic name, Bohol Drug Dependency Rehabilitation Center. it was conceived
and designed as thesis requirement for the BS Architecture degree course last schoolyear
at the Bohol Island State University (BISU).
The team spent time at the Balay Kahayag site in Laya, Bohol to study features
of the project site and see how it could be linked to the current facility
which the study was supposed to complement and enhance.
The team was headed
by Luigi Rulida with the following as members: Isidro Macabenta, Jayson Rey
Sayson, and Ma. Josephine Sarigumba. Their adviser was Arch. Nino Guidaben,
former Ayala Foundation scholar, an internationally trained heritage and
environment conservation architect. As early as 2014, Bohol Local Development
Foundation (BLDF) funded his study trip to Davao City so assess the positive
and negative aspects in the design of drug rehab centers.
Like his students,
he also visited the Balay Kahayag site in Laya to familiarize himself with the
place as location of a drug rehab facility.
The proposed
facility would increase the intake capacity of the current FITWBK to another 30
clients. It was designed to integrate nature in the healing and recovery
process of the clients. The concept of all buildings is
from bahay kubo with its roofing inspired by leaf concept
The project cost is
Php 62 million. I asked the permission of the team leader to send the design
and costing to a close friend in Australia who volunteered to present it to
potential donors, such as the Rotary of Australia. Anybody interested in
helping raise funds so we could build the center in Bohol could just email us
at npestelos@gmail.com.
2) Outreach and
Drop-In Centers (ODICs) . I have written about this vital facility a number of
times in my column. Under the present situation, it will serve as a vital
facility to link surrenderees and their families to an outreach center where
can access diagnostic, counselling and referral services.
We have estimated
the budget to establish an ODIC including the maintenance costs for a year as
follows:
1.1
Building cost for 17 sq.m. structure
at Php 18,000 per sq m. PHP 306,000*
1.2
Office equipment (1 Laptop; LCD;
2
tables; 6 chairs; 1 electric fan) 62,500
1.3
Staff (1 Psychologist; 1 Social
Worker)
387,525
1.4
Utilities (Light and water; office
supplies; communication and
transport)
74,400
TOTAL
PHP 830,425
If there is an existing office space or
underutilized building which can be used as outreach center, the e the annual cost
to maintain an ODIC will be: Php 524,
425.
Additional costs will be consultancy fees for
trainers who will train the ODIC staff and to include training supplies, food,
etc. : Php 100,000. Hence, the total costs to establish and maintain one ODIC
for one year will be: Php 624,425. Several municipalities can share a common
ODIC to reduce the operations costs and achieve efficiency in operations.
3) Good Samaritan Project.
The first project I
came up with more than a month ago. The title is tentative. In our consultation
meeting, Fr. Rara said we must change the name because people from other
religions may not like the term. No problem with the suggestion. The title is
tentative; it can still be revised.
The project concept was
based on the familiar Biblical passage on the Good Samaritan which our action
group at the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals (BCBP) reflected on during one of our
meetings. I spun it off as a project concept based on the idea that we could be
our brother’s keeper during this time that needy persons are, as it were, left
dying and helpless by the road.
I believe
that this can be done while waiting for the Government to establish a drug
rehab center in addition to the one we have now which you have visited.
Basically it
is a community participation approach to address the presence of an
overwhelming number of drug users without a counselling or treatment program.
We can pilot this in the three municipalities which are in the catchment area
of the FARM It Works Balay Kahayag (FITWBK) Chemical Dependency Treatment
Center.
We can work
with either the Church, an NGO or LGU to coordinate the project. We can start
with a budget of Php 200,000 to Php 500,000 per municipality, depending on its
population size and topography, which
will pay for administrative, training and social preparation costs. The
important thing is to reach out to the drug users as early as possible,
categorize them as to the severity of addiction, refer serious cases to the
drug rehab center and provide counseling and other interventions, e.g.
livelihood to drug users in other categories.
Here are the specifics of the project so that we need not
think of rehabilitation in terms of a rehabilitation center:
For background and rationale, I note:
Even prior to the ascension to power of the new national
Administration, which has pledged to eradicate in six months the pernicious
drug abuse problem and drug-related crimes
in the country, there has been a spate of killings of drug pushers and
drug lords, and probably a number of ordinary drug users.
The situation has created a climate of fear which has led to
the surrender of an overwhelming number of drug pushers and users all over the
country. In Bohol, for instance, the number of those who surrendered have
increased from an initial 3,000 to than 30,000 in less than a month. Due to
lack of drug rehabilitation centers, coupled with the high cost of
rehabilitation, it is expected that most of those who surrendered will end up
in the custody of their respective families without access to systematic
counselling and treatment,
It
is common knowledge, however, that drug addiction results in brain damage and
psychological aberrations and the families are not equipped to handle such day-to-day
problems that may arise on account of these factors.
The situation arising from the mass surrender of drug users
requires a systematic pre-treatment, treatment and post-treatment process undertaken
under the guidance of a rehabilitation center or drug addiction professionals
working in close coordination with the affected families and local communities.
This project
represents an effort to address the problems that may arise on account of the
mass surrender of drug users and the need to assist the family cope with
possible problems that may occur on account of lack of access to adequate
rehabilitation services.
For Overall Goal, I put the following: To ensure that each surrenderee is provided a comprehensive and appropriate package of services from pre-treatment to full recovery.
I listed the following as specific objectives
a. To establish baseline data on the condition of each surrenderee
which will serve as basis for treatment and post-treatment interventions;
b. To ensure systematic provision of counselling and other services
with the full cooperation and assistance of the family and the local community,
as well as the local government;
c. To monitor regularly the progress of each client and adjust
inputs accordingly;
d. To document outstanding cases of full recovery and successful
integration with both the family and the community.
To achieve these objectives, I put the following as
comprising the implementation strategy of the project:
a)
Partnership with all key sectors with specific
inputs to deliver;
b)
Mobilization of volunteers who will be organized
into teams assigned to specific cluster of target clients in specific location
and linked to specific focal person in the project management committee;
c)
Organization of families of clients to ensure
spiritual and other support to target clients.
d)
Designation of a pilot area where implementation
approaches can be tested based on current organizational capability, existence
of willing partners, and affordability.
For key activities, I listed the following:
-Link up with drug rehab centers in nearby
regions and consult them if they can help conduct a systematic diagnosis of
those arrested and those who surrendered to determine a) who can be treated at
home; b) those who must be treated in a drug rehab facility; and (c) those
whose mental conditions has worsened due to long period of drug use and must be
committed to a mental hospital instead.
-Recruit and train volunteers who can serve
as counsellors for both drug abuse victims and their respective families;
-Train nursing, psychology and/or social work
or social science students and their teachers on the use of diagnostic tools so
that the diagnosis could be done on a massive scale simultaneously to cover most
of the 30,000 surrenderees;
-Formulate and implement a short-term
orientation or basic skills training course for all the volunteers who are
willing to do this work;
-Liaise with partner drug rehab centers and
institutions and seek their advice on how to fast-tract treatment at
substantially lower costs;
-Organize an interim core team who will
assist in mobilizing support from all sectors (Government, Church and
faith-based organizations; private sector; civil society organizations,
academic institutions, etc.
-Get an updated list of surrenderees and all
relevant data about them for planning purposes.
For Organization and Management, I listed the
following:
--Decide on the initial coverage area of the
project which will serve as learning site for approaches, methodologies and
detailed organization work of building local area teams linked to central
management
-Get a list of identified surrendeeres per
area (barangay; purok)
-Organize them into 5-member Units; let them
elect a leader among themselves; designate a place where they can meet
regularly. A Project Officer (PO), who will come from the coordinating
organization, will handle initially one Unit
assisted by a volunteer to come from partner institution such as Holy
Name University (HNU) or other academic institutions, Church group, etc.
The Assistant Project Officer (APO) , who can
either be a Volunteer or a member of the coordinating agency, will be trained to assume the tasks of the PO
someday so there is a system for recruiting more volunteers to do this vital
task.
-All POs will be trained on how to perform
their various tasks; they can be organized as a group, too.
-Likewise all APOs will be organized as a
group, too, so systematic training inputs can be provided and the sharing of experiences facilitated. All
Unit Leaders may also be organized as a group for the purpose of imparting
training skills.
-A Project Management Committee (PMC) will be
organized at a higher level to supervise two teams
– a Project Support Team to
take care of logistics and funding and admin support; and a Training and
Advocacy Team to handle training and
information support to project operations.
I also proposed that
Families of GSN Members will be organized into a GSN Family Association and can elect
their own officers and a PO assigned to it, too. It can be linked to the PMO.For
comments, email: npestelos@gmail.com ### NMP/13 Aug 2016/5.13 a.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment