capacity building of urban poor communities

At the heart of working in community development is the task of building capacities of the people in making them the real subjects of their own transformation. Such task includes training of leaders to become good animators and servants of their communities especially in the area of financial management, para-legal education, organizational development and enterprise engagement.

Leadership Training: One of PACSII’s goals is to ensure a good organization of the communities of the Homeless People’s Federation. This becomes possible by identifying and training leaders who could be deeply motivated, skilled and committed to the work of service in the community.  Such training includes sessions on Organizational Development, program design, strategic planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of programs and activities.

Financial Management: Leaders, especially in the area of finance, are given training on Financial Management. Certain principles of transparency, accountability, co-responsibility, sustainability and resourcefulness form part of the training along with practical skills related to bookkeeping, simple accounting, project proposal-writing, financial reporting, budget development, monitoring and evaluation of budget performance.

Para–Legal Education and Assistance: Empowerment of the homeless comes with a good knowledge and appreciation of their rights and duties which are stipulated in the law/s of the land. This is especially true in the area of land acquisition and tenure, housing projects, demolition and eviction. Just as they are given some basic knowledge on this, PACSII seeks out legal counsel for the homeless people in their general and specific concerns that merit legal considerations,

Roll-out training onUN Convention on Right of the Child, Child Protection, Child Particapation, Child Safe Guarding and Child Rights Programming.

Organizational Development: PACSII facilitates the organization of the homeless people into becoming community associations or home-owners associations. Such organizational development includes technical support for the communities to build systems that could sustain the life, operations and functioning of the organization. The writing and updating of by-laws and constitution, designing of communication system, determining accountabilities through clear organizational structure and job description of those assigned or employed in particular tasks and responsibilities, are areas that are important aspects of organizational development.

CEFE-Based Entrepreneurship Development Program

Enterprise Engagement: Part of the responsibilities of PACSII to the homeless is to help facilitate that the communities are able to develop collectively in addressing their concerns. The economic component of the life of the communities is surely quite important, especially for the poorest of the poor. This includes creation of programs for livelihood and micro-financing that are coupled with savings mobilization.