In March 2022, our Operations Manager, Cherie Gomez, got to do a social enterprise accelerator course with the Miller Center on Impact Measurement and Management which lasted for 3 months. This is where she met one of her mentors, Professor Chan Tai.
Professor Chan Thai teaches courses on communication and technology, health communication, and the strategic design of communication campaigns to promote behavior change.
The program's purpose was to help improve the data collection and accuracy. Improvement in the survey process and presentation of the data to stakeholders.
After the course completion, Cherie regularly met with Prof. Chan on Zoom and in December 2022, Prof. Chan traveled to the Philippines to better understand the intervention of what AIDFI was doing in the communities. She visited Brgy. Cabagna-an, So. Ananggue, and Brgy. Alangilan projects in La Castellana, Murcia, and Bacolod respectively.
The visit was very fruitful and helped Prof. Chan and Cherie work on further improvements to the survey process and impact data collection.
In 2023, AIDFI started working on an upgrade of its monitoring app by including impact data collection. The development was based on the discussion between Cherie and Prof. Chan.
We heard again from Prof. Chan that she was visiting AIDFI on December 7 to 20, 2023. We planned to launch newly developed monitoring app during the visit.
During her visit, she went with our team to So. Ananggue, Brgy. Mahalang, Brgy. Cabagna-an, So. Mico, and to Brgy. Altavista in Leyte to conduct group discussions and interviews with water associations and beneficiaries. This was a unique opportunity also for our personnel to learn on improvements on focus group discussions and conduct of interviews.
On December 13 and 14, the launch of the app with a select 8 water associations were invited to AIDFI for a 2-day workshop on impact monitoring and concluded with the distribution of mobile phones for project monitoring.
Prof. Chan enjoyed her 2nd visit to AIDFI and working with our personnel. In her own words, she feels inspired by everyone at AIDFI. Saying “It is very clear you all care about the communities you support”.
The work that she and Cherie have been doing over the past 2 years is an integral part of our water program and the community work we do. We are very grateful for the continued support and look forward again to hosting Prof. Chan Tai in 2024 and the years to come.