MARAWI CITY, Lanao del Sur (PIA)--Roughly 2,500 children from the city here benefitted from the Urban Child Protection Project (UCPP) of the international organization World Vision.

The initiative officially concluded Tuesday, January 25, after its one and a half-year run since 2020 and covering five schools under Marawi City Schools Division, to wit, Tuca Boganga Elementary School, Hadji Hassan Memorial Elementary School, Sikap Elementary School, Cadayonan Elementary School, and Abdul Aziz Elementary School.

World Vision Project Manager Adonis Casinillo conveyed that they are delighted by the overwhelming achievements the project gained in each intervention that focused on intensifying child protection in the city. 

He detailed that challenges, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts, came along their way as they struggled in gathering people at the community and city level, and to triumph these, they were prompted to adopt innovative means and maximize the utilization of technologies for all necessary coordination while face-to-face facilitations were pushed in adherence to minimum standard health protocol. 

With the fruitful ending of the UCPP, Adonis extended his appreciation to their partner agencies, schools and local government units for their respective contributions which constituted its overall success as he also called for the continuance of support for more future endeavors. 

“We thank you for all your support. Had it not been because of your support, we could not have done the things that we achieved for Marawi. We always encourage everyone’s participation and we look forward to expanding our services to other areas. We hope to have donors and sponsors who would like to partner with us in doing more initiatives in other areas so that the building of Marawi will become a reality for all,” he said.

World Vision Program Manager Liza Branal, on the other hand, expressed in her message that as an organization, they hope to be remembered by the goal they set which is to champion child protection. 

“World Vision is committed to raise the quality of lives of children… Sana ang maalala niyo sa World vision ay how we committed ourselves para matulungan ang kabataan [I hope what you remember about World Vision is how we committed ourselves to help the youth]. We hoped to have set our footprints,” she said. 

While the UCPP bid farewell to its beneficiaries, the World Vision announced the opening of another project eyeing the same targets. (CRG/PIA-Lanao del Sur)