The Holy Cross of Davao College recently joined other institutions and organizations in an effort to alleviate hunger and poverty in the region through a mass signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Enhance Partnership Against Hunger and Poverty (EPAHP) led by the Department of Social Welfare and Development Field Office XI (DSWDFO-XI) last March 26, 2024 in Davao City.
The undertaking, which was represented by Ms. Cirila Lilibeth Panes, Program Chairperson of Bachelor of Science in Social Work (BSSW), marked HCDC’s continued commitment to research and development initiatives as part of its mission to help the community combat hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture in pursuing the Inter-Agency Task Force’s (IATF) Zero Hunger as mandated by the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Number 2.
Panes said that the expertise of HCDC as an academic institution would greatly help the research endeavors of DSWDFO-XI.
“I was happy because I felt their willingness to collaborate with us. They need further research about this cause and they want researchers from our institution,” she mentioned in an interview.
Panes added that the MoU is institutional, emphasizing that it is not solely BSSW that will be mobilized in the partnership, but the whole HCDC community.
“This is an institutional partnership, meaning, it’s not only the Social Work program who will be active in this partnership. It’s for all of us — we as a partner institution,” she said.
As the only partner academic institution in the Davao Region, HCDC is also committed to assigning a focal person in the EPAHP regional partners to attend activities, meetings and other related concerns to ensure proper coordination, monitoring, and evaluation of the program; determining areas of improvement and expansion; organizing relevant training; and mobilizing HCDC resources from the different programs to ensure the attainment of its desired objectives.