THE Department of Social Welfare and Development-KALAHI-CIDSS recently released over P4 million to beneficiaries of cash for work project in the island-municipality of Caluya, Antique.

The amount covers the salaries of 1,032 workers from the town’s four barangays namely Poblacion, Banago, Imba, and Masanag. Poblacion was the lead barangay in the cash-for-work project.

Each worker was paid P395 per day for 10 days in exchange for community works identified by the recipient barangays of the cash for work project.

Among identified tasks for the workers were the clearing and grubbing of the vegetation along sidewalks. Every day, the workers have to clean 15 linear meters of public streets.

The beneficiaries were grateful for giving them temporary jobs at this time of the pandemic. Most of them will use their salaries for food and other household needs. Others will use it to repair their houses.

KALAHI-CIDSS has provided a grant of P2.9 million for the cash for work project. While the municipal local government unit has provided more than P1.7 million cash and in-kind counterpart. The communities also provided a counterpart of P52,000.

The cash-for-work project aims to provide temporary jobs at this time of pandemic and uplift economic activities in the covered areas.

The cash for work project is one of the Program’s inclusions under its Disaster Response Modality. Construction of quarantine facilities, purchase of medical equipment were also some of the projects funded under the said modality.