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The pandemic made things even more difficult, particularly transactions involving finance and accounting matters such as providing attachments to liquidation reports, releasing of budgets which required physical presence at the banks, and budget re-alignments brought about by the pandemic situation. But it was heartening to see the grantees helping out by finding ways to ease the process.” - Elma Bustamante, Finance Manager, YGOAL Inc. In terms of technology, not all grantees have the equipment or facility to engage remotely. In terms of skills, not everyone can use computers efficiently, not to mention the different platforms. The implementation team themselves had to learn the available platforms and technology Security of data was also a concern during the transition period. Explaining to grantees that the platforms being used are safe and that their information are being stored in an ethical manner was a challenge. The team had to undergo its own training on data management and security before proceeding to reach out to the grantees using the online platforms available.” - Joseph Navarro, Project Coordinator, Voice L&L Implementation Team In transitioning to an online format, the team did not just need to calibrate what kind of technology to use in within its capacity and resources, but also how to facilitate the content building and match with the technology that grantees can relate to and understand.
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Adjusting approaches to activities was difficult and challenging at first.”
Our advocacy is nationwide so we were badly hit by the pandemic. It impacted our project implementation, especially the capacity development activities for the community.” The impact of capacity development work with community partners could not be easily gauged or measured because learning via online platform still has familiarity and comfort challenges with the communities.” The pandemic caused the organization to stop operations. There was a need to contain the community where we have the girls we take care of to ensure their safety. They also had to ensure online safety to prevent cases of children being exploited online. As an alternative activity while on lockdown, the group published poems and literary creative materials calling on people to be vigilant.” We had to develop new education materials not just for online trainings but also asynchronous learning materials for offline trainings.”
Needing to study online platforms internally, then adapting to these and explaining and cascading this new normal way of doing things on the community / grassroots level was hard.”
Going online is made more difficult without internet or budget for conducting virtual meetings.”
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In the new normal environment, partners took a long time responding.”
We had to look for ways to train organizations of persons with disabilities such as creating GCash accounts, logging in to Zoom or GMeet, and participating in online disability trainings.” “We tried to have more events online and improve online presence because the typical lecture/ classroom type of advocacy was no longer effective.”
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