Family-Based Actions for Children and Their Environments in the Slums

Background and Objectives

As 64 per cent of the country's population now live in urban areas with 30 per cent in slums, this project aimed to highlight slums as a strategic spatial focus to reduce poverty in the Philippines and assist the Government achieve its MDG targets by improving the quality of life for at least 600 urban poor households living in 15 slum communities in 15 cities, by focusing on the needs of slum children.

FACES puts a human face to MDGs by identifying children in the slums as the face of urban poverty, who will set household and community-level MDG targets and actions to be achieved through local government budget appropriation, relevant and responsive local policy measures, and effective delivery of goods and services. FACES sustains the previous MDG localization initiatives by enhancing the proven strategies and weaving them together into a synthesized whole, completing the envisioned cycle for meeting the MDGs at the city level with a strategic focus near home: the community, the neighbourhood slums, the households and finally, the children.

Activities

The main activities include:
* Select participating cities, slum communities and families;
* Conduct capacity building workshops for partners institutions, cities and families;
* Advocate the mainstreaming of slum-level MDG targets in city plans and budget;
* Conduct national and city level multi-stakeholder dialogues to develop quick response mechanisms (QRMs) and provide technical assistance to operationalise the quick response mechanisms;
* Support monitoring of children's progress on the MDG targets;
* Facilitate knowledge sharing among the 15 cities and partner institutions;
* Ensure national and local policy reviews and consultations are integrated into the revised NUDHF;
* Monitor and report on the progress of the project.

Results (2008)

* Fifteen cities and 15 slum communities selected, organized and mobilized to implement FACES;
* First Business Meeting (May 29-30, 2008) enabled development of a coordinated work-plan;
* City and community workshops conducted for 604 families in participating slum communities resulting in all 604 FACES families (women/parents and their children) identifying and prioritizing child-focused MDG issues, and formulating response strategies and actions to address the issues;
* FACES Child Progress Report Card, MDG Family Covenants and Family Quick Action Guides translated into local dialects and being used by 581 families to monitor progress and actions;
* Twelve cities have developed and tested their QRMS;
* Cities making various investments in demonstration projects/models on child-focused interventions;
* HUDCC integrating the findings into their draft revised NUDHF.