Weaving Strength: An Initial Assessment of Damayan and Ugnayan as Community Resilience Builders

The study was aimed to determine the Damayan at Ugnayan sa Pamayanan: Initial Assessment. Specifically, it looked into the following: (a) demographic profile of the beneficiaries along: Gender, age, educational attainment, work, monthly income, training/seminar attended, group/association: (b) the effectiveness of the program in terms of: Professionalization of tanod, disaster preparedness, environmental awareness and livelihood training; (c) the problems encountered by the program as perceived by the beneficiaries. This study used multiple methods to provide a detailed program evaluation. The quantitative method was utilized to gather and analyze numerical data, which provided a complete description of the demographic profile of the beneficiaries and qualitative method was used to collect information on the program’s effectiveness and identify the problems that the beneficiaries encountered while participating in the program. The survey questionnaire and interview were used to gather the data needed. The study found that participants were mostly female, 17-26 years old, high school level/graduates, and on-call/self-employed. They had a monthly income of 6,000-10,000, received disaster risk training, and were not part of any cooperative/association. The training provided valuable knowledge to the trainees and improved their learning. However, participants faced financial and time management problems. The study recommends informing beneficiaries about the benefits of training, focusing on behavior level, stressing the importance of attendance, and accommodating participants’ schedules. The program should also intensify support for participants’ economic needs.