“Climate is changing. It’s here. It’s happening so we should realize that and we should act accordingly.”

To conclude its month-long celebration of its 25th Founding anniversary, the Philippine Council for NGO Certification (PCNC) invited the Oscar M. Lopez Center to hold an online learning session featuring two of its projects—“Mga Kwento ng Klima” and the “Climate Resilience Challenge”. The online learning session is part of a series that seeks to highlight the contributions and leading practices of PCNC-accredited NGOs, providing a platform for peer-sharing and learning, and exploring potential collaborations among member organizations.

The online learning session opened with a talk by OMLC’s Executive Director, Dr. Rodel D. Lasco, who provided participants with the current status of our local and global climate, how these findings translate to our day-to-day life, as well as some climate projections based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest report.

One of Dr. Lasco’s key messages is the need for collective action and how everyone can contribute to addressing climate change-related concerns. He mentioned that if we want to have a livable planet for future generations, it is important that we act now collectively and immediately toward adaptation and mitigation.

He then reminded the participants that while the findings of the report may be daunting, there is still hope. We just need to act now and together.

Everyone has a role to play

Dr. Lasco provided an overview of the two OMLC flagship programs.

Mga Kwento ng Klima is a 60-minute documentary produced by OMLC in partnership with ABS-CBN’s DocuCentral. The documentary is composed of five parts that features different, first-hand stories on some of the biggest disasters that the country has faced in recent memory.

This project was anchored on the idea that storytelling is an effective tool for helping the general public visualize and understand the systemic risks and impacts of climate change. Part of the documentary’s pre-production process included holding several mini-workshops with multi-sectoral stakeholders on themes relevant to climate change.

Mga Kwento ng Klima received the silver screen award at the 2020 International US Film and Video Festival in the Environment and Ecology Documentary category.

The Climate Resilience Challenge, on the other hand, seeks to surface innovative, interdisciplinary, and solution-oriented ideas that can help address climate risks and vulnerability, and help build and enhance climate resilience in the Philippines.

The challenge calls for transformative strategies for the national, provincial, or local level that private sector actors can take on. For its 2020 edition, the Climate Resilience Challenge focused on looking at emerging ideas for food and water security, livelihood and essential services, and climate-health systems.

Both programs were used in the breakout sessions as case studies for the participants as they try to take a look at different climate change impacts and identify how they can be part of addressing climate change.

Identifying how organizations can contribute

In breakout rooms, participants were challenged to harness their organization’s stories to surface the relevance of climate impacts in their work and advocacies. From these stories, organizations were encouraged to identify activities and programs they can do to help address the impacts of climate change among their constituencies.

Group representatives were then asked to share their insights and brainstorming with the rest of the participants during the plenary.

Held last June 6, the event was attended by 39 PCNC-accredited organizations and was live streamed on PCNC’s Facebook page. To watch the event, click here: https://fb.watch/dLGDP6XMi7/.

Other links:

• To watch all “Mga Kwento ng Klima” parts, click here: https://bit.ly/OMLC-MKKPlaylist
• To know more about the Climate Resilience Challenge, click here: https://bit.ly/OMLC-ClimateResilienceChallenge