NASSA and CARE sign disaster-management agreements



Passion for service, anchored in love. This vision finds resonance in the NASSA-CARE partnership, which focuses on disaster response and capacity building of victims of calamities.

Officials of CARE and National Secretariat for Social Action – Justice and Peace (NASSA-JP) forged an agreement on 28 March 2008 directly allowing 35 “high risk” arch/dioceses to benefit from disaster risk reduction training organized by the two organizations. NASSA Chairman, Bishop Broderick Pabillo, Executive Secretary Sr. Rosanne Mallillin, spc and CARE Deputy Regional Director Patrick Sayer led the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding which shall hopefully facilitate a more “synergetic impact on disaster response, poverty eradication and the promotion of social justice.



Considered as one of the leading Church Networks that provides relief and rehabilitation assistance, NASSA has so far built 17 housing projects and some livelihood assistance for 2,000 families. It continuously organizes training programs designed to reduce the communities' vulnerability to disasters and strengthen people's capacity to respond effectively and systematically to emergency situations.

Explaining the relevance of NASSA-CARE partnership, Sayer stressed that both organizations “play to each other's strengths”. CARE's international experience on disaster response and access to technical and financial resources compliments NASSA's
ground capacity and extensive and well-placed diocesan network.

CARE, an international network of 12 members from Australia, Asia, North America, Japan and Europe has been a global workforce within a worldwide movement dedicated to ending poverty and protecting the rights of vulnerable groups, particularly women and children, in times of crises.

“Our objective is not so much to ‘do' as to encourage, support, help and nourish indigenous organizations involved in fighting poverty, injustice and human vulnerability wherever it exists,” Sayer said.

NASSA Executive Secretary welcomes the partnership as it further allows NASSA to capacitate the members of Social Action Network with regards disaster response. Meanwhile, newly-installed NASSA Director, Bishop Broderick Pabillo, also expressed enthusiasm over the partnership. “I am new in the social action, but if you have developments such as these already assures me that all will be well and the programs are worth anticipating for,” Pabillo declared.