Dangoyngoy sa Kahilum 2

(Second of a Series of Lectures and Workshops on Violence against Women and Children)

Violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families, and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence – yet the reality is that too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned.

The series of fora, with the theme, “Ang Dangoyngoysa Kahilum” involves the participation of key and focal personnel, front liners and first responders who are charged with recognizing initial signs of abuse. The forum also aims to ensure that these front liners and first responders can confidently and proactively take measures to prevent and respond to the problem of domestic violence, including dealing with individual allegations from the moment of receiving a complaint to closure of a case.

The first forum in the series was held in celebration of November 8, 2011 as Zonta International Day and showed women of all ages what to look for in an abusive situation, to give them the tools to get out safely. Zonta Club of Cebu II worked with schools to equip guidance counselors and to create curricula so that young women and men in our community know, without a shadow of a doubt, that domestic abuse is never OK.

The second episode of the series was designed to enable and equip guidance counselors and librarians with stock knowledge and the tools to identify the existence of the problems and then deal with the established problem in the best, most efficient way possible. Organized in cooperation with the Cebu Librarians Association, Inc. and the Philippine Guidance and Counseling Association, Inc. the lecture/workshop was held on January 26, 2013 and tackled the three most prevalent issues being; “Tell-tale signs of Drug use and abuse and what to do about it”, “Dealing with Bullying” and its repercussions and “Recognizing and Breaking the Cycle of Child Abuse”. Knowledgeable and experienced resource speakers were Chester Dagus, Dr. Pureza Oñate and Dr. Consuelo Malaga respectively. After the speakers the 60 strong participants broke up into three focused discussion groups to synthesize the information they gathered and plan out strategies and protocols to assist them contend with the three issues in their work and academic environment.