“To lead in caring, protecting, and securing the health, safety, and welfare needs of the UPLB community.”
This is the new mission set by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Community Affairs (OVCCA) for itself at its 3-day strategic planning and gender-sensitive client service workshop on March 23-25 at the Development Academy of the Philippines Conference Center.
OVCCA reviewed and realigned its mandates, programs, and services to cater to the intrinsic needs of the UPLB community and ensured that these are consistent with the vision of a future-proof university.
In a message to the participants, Chancellor Jose V. Camacho, Jr. asked the OVCCA staff to continue helping the university to fulfill its public service functions. He commended OVCCA for its commitment to nurturing UPLB’s relationships with its stakeholders and maintaining a safe academic space conducive to learning, research, and innovations.
Director Nelson Jose Vincent B. Querijero of the UPLB Gender Center (UPLB GC) facilitated the morning session of the first day of the workshop. Using the Balanced Scorecard Approach, the participants reviewed OVCCA’s citizen customers, internal processes, financial performance, and learning and development perspectives to set the office’s goals and better appreciate its contribution to the university.
Engr. Christian Paulo C. Altoveros of OVCCA took over the afternoon session to lead a workshop on OVCCA’s performance and output monitoring, while Kathleen Cay G. Espiel of UPLB GC discussed their best practices on data monitoring.
In celebration of Women’s Month, the second day of the workshop focused on gender and development (GAD) topics.
Renato D. Dumagco, Jr. of the Office of Anti-Sexual Harassment, led a lecture on gender sensitivity and anti-sexual harassment as part of a campaign to maintain UPLB as a safe space.
The next session delved into GAD mainstreaming (GM) to strengthen the strategic thrusts of UPLB to become a genuinely gender-responsive institution. Sairah Mae R. Saipudin of the UPLB GC expounded on the various enabling mechanisms that UPLB employs in its GM efforts.
The next session, led by Jullie Ann C. Reyes of the UPLB GC, tackled the importance and the process of developing the GAD Plan and Budget (GPB). Reyes stressed that the goal is to help the UP System meet the minimum GAD budget requirement. As per PCW-DBM-NEDA Joint Circular 2012-01, government agencies must allot at least 5% of their total budget appropriations to GAD.
The second day was concluded with a workshop and a presentation of the GPB and GAD Accomplishment Report developed by each OVCCA unit.
In application of the learnings from the first two days, OVCCA’s frontline staff and management personnel underwent a gender-sensitive client service workshop for the last day of the learning activity. Primarily, the seminar aimed to refresh the OVCCA staff’s knowledge and practices in handling clients to ensure proper service delivery.
Maria Kristine E. Alciso and Marian Friecell O. Enciso, Development Dimensions International, Inc. certified facilitators, led the workshop with interactive sessions on customer profiling, customer journey map development, level of service identification, and management of irate customers.
For his closing message, Vice Chancellor for Community Affairs Roberto P. Cereno emphasized the importance of not just applying the learnings from the workshop but also reechoing the values to colleagues to ensure knowledge sharing. He said that as one of the frontline offices of the university, OVCCA should lead by example in providing ethical and mindful public service. (Roi Mojado)
This article was originally published on the UPLB website.