On November 25, 2023, UPD Ugnayan ng Pahinungod conducted its first Usapang Gender: A Capacity-Building Workshop for Volunteers at the De Los Reyes Auditorium, School of Labor and Industrial Relations (UP SOLAIR), UP Diliman. The workshop focused on equipping volunteers with knowledge on gender and development, with a focus on gender sensitivity, gender-fair language, and gender-based violence. Out of the sixty-one registrants, twenty-six were able to attend and complete the workshop.
UP Diliman Gender Office’s Ms. Chona Rita Cruz-Cabrera, Ms. Anna Myrishia Villanueva, and Ms. Ma. Stephanie Andaya served as the resource persons. Ms. Cruz-Cabrera’s session focused on basic Gender and Development Concepts, where she introduced Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGIE), gender-related concepts and misconceptions. Ms. Anna Villanueva talked about Gender-Based Violence (GBV), with a focus on defining the said topic and introducing pathways, processes, and protocols to take when handling cases of GBV. For the third session, Ms. Ma. Stephanie Andaya gave a lecture on gender-fair language, providing concrete examples on how this is manifested and how to use it moving forward.
For this capacity-building workshop, Internal Support Volunteers Ms. Anna Lourdes Cruz, Ms. Donna Layag, and Ms. Zemver Magat were mobilized for the event. Ms. Cruz served as the host, Ms. Layag for logistics, and Ms. Magat for registration.
To conclude the session, participants were grouped into four and focus group discussions were held. Discussions and the succeeding plenary session aimed to answer the following questions:
- What are things you now know about gender that you either didn’t know before, or thought differently about?
- Give two things you didn’t expect to learn today.
- Do you have personal concerns at the moment that will make it challenging for you to help others in the LGBTQIA+ Community, or engage in volunteer work revolving around gender?
- Given the knowledge that you gained today, how do you think this will help you to better serve the UP Community and its constituents?
- What makes you want to continue to become a volunteer?
In terms of session evaluation, an overall score of 97.73% was given by the participants considering the event’s accomplishment of its goals, sufficiency of sessions, sufficiency of activities, knowledge of facilitators/speakers, relevance of session, provision of assistance, and organization of the event. They remarked that their biggest take away was learning about gender-responsive protocols. They also mentioned how being more aware and sensitive were must-haves in practicing gender mainstreaming. Additionally, they remarked on the importance of understanding that gender continues to evolve in time.
