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                 “There is no power of change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” – Margaret J. Wheatley

 

                Last July 13, 2019, Team Maras, in coordination with the Barangay Council, successfully held its first General Assembly with the townspeople. The aim of the assembly was to let the community people of Maras know the status of their community, and subsequently give them the sense of empowerment by letting them prioritize the identified problems based on the results of our house-to-house survey.

               The people were informed beforehand that this assembly will be pushed through on the 13th. And despite the difficult terrains that some of these people need to cross in order to make it down to the Barangay covered court, where the assembly was held, close to 400 people attended the event. A free blood pressure was offered upon registration, and the data will then serve as a further evidence that hypertension is a prevalent problem in their community.

                 Aside from hypertension, the other identified problems by the group where malnutrition among children, improper solid waste management, dysfunctional health care system, increased number of unemployment, and poor access to safe drinking water. After explaining the reasoning as to why the group deemed these 6 conditions as problems that must be given high importance, these problems were then prioritized by the people based on their saliency, and the Maglaya’s Scale for the Prioritization of Health Needs was used as guide. An open forum was held afterwards, as these people used the platform to voice out their concerns, with Team Maras and the Barangay Council listening.

                 The event, with all its seriousness, had its light moments as well. Games such as “Bring Me…” and “Hep Hep Hooray” were played, much to the delight of the crowd. The event then ended with another session of blood pressure monitoring.

With a high turnout of people, all engaging actively, it gives the Team a sense of hope, that the future projects we’ll be facilitating will definitely have an impact to the community, and will be sustained in the long run.