Community Planning Barangay Lusaran

Last week CPaG again facilitated a community development planning. This time we went to Lusaran, a mountain barangay. Lusaran is quit far from Cebu City center. The way to get there is through the mountains (logically) and the roads aren’t in a very good shape. That is why we (CPaG staff) decided to stay in Lusaran overnight.

Lusaran is again a very nice barangay. Completely different from the other mountain barangay, Taptap, where I’ve already been too. Taptap is on the mountains and you have magnificent views…Lusaran, however, is in a valley, along a river. Again a wonderful surrounding!

The community planning was the usual…gathering data, presenting it, making a problem tree, making a 5 year development plan,… I again tried to understand as much as possible, going from one group (5 different sectoral groups) to another. In comparison to the planning in Taptap, it didn’t go so smoothly here. The people were less participative and aside from this there were almost no youth present and also the participating men were few. Quite sad as this planning is about the future of their barangay.



Sometimes I went for a little walk. Seeing the men playing games (cards, mahjong,…) along the street (for money off course), kids running around, farmers plowing a field, kids fishing in the river, women returning from a 2hour walk to the market,… There was a lot to see!













I also went to visit the high school and elementary school. The teachers very friendly and welcoming…telling their story, talking about the problems they encounter,…Both schools have a big problem with drop-outs and especially for elementary school this is a high number. Some children need to walk for 2 hours to get to school, crossing 14 rivers… However, according to the teachers the biggest reason for the drop-out is the malnutrition of the children…being hungry makes it harder for them to concentrate at school and at the other hand children need to stay at home because their help is needed in the household or they need to work to earn money for the family…Yes this is the hard reality…!

Aside from the observations and nice talks with the “locals”, I also had a good time with the CPaG staff. Nice evenings, playing volleyball or badminton, singing karaoke (I told you…there is a karaoke machine everywhere…),… just hanging around!