Butuan City – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Caraga advocated the new brand name of its targeting system, “Listahanan” in the activity “Lakat Caraga, Iban Kita!” held last December 17, 2013.

The activity introduced Listahanan to the Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries and partner agencies in attendance. Regional Director Minda B. Brigoli explained that Listahanan resulted from a communication audit conducted in 2012 that showed that the name, National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction or NHTS-PR lacked appeal, recall and often mistaken as a housing project. In a bid to boost the project’s popularity, the department opted to rebrand.

“Listahanan is a combination of words listahan (list) and tahanan (house/home). The name and its tagline, ‘Talaan ng Pamilyang Nangangailangan’ define the project as an initiative to establish an organized list of poor families needing assistance of social protection programs”, said Director Brigoli.

Director Brigoli also enlisted the support of those in attendance while emphasizing the project’s relevance, “Let’s support Listahanan especially in the conduct of second round household assessment that may happen next year, because this is the tool that will show where we are in our status of well-being.”

The second assessment will update the Listahanan database which is used as basis for identifying potential beneficiaries of anti-poverty programs. Its results will also provide the country a profile of its poor inhabitants – showing policy makers and program implementers areas of progress or decline in the development status of the poor.

DSWD also organized parlor games about the new brand which were actively participated by Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries. The participants later expressed their support to the project through a symbolic signing of a tarpaulin carrying the slogan “I support Listahanan”. ### Social Marketing Unit (Maria Cecilia Sosas)