Satellite Campus Personnel attend GAD’s Gender Sensitivity Orientation

MALAYBALAY CITY (OP-IPS) The Bukidnon State University Gender and Development Unit spearheaded a Virtual Gender Sensitivity Orientation for newly-hired personnel in the Satellite Campus on August 12, 2019 via Google Meet.

The Orientation was also attended by a number of personnel from the Main Campus who were unable to attend an earlier schedule.
The two-hour orientation covered the topics, Sex and Gender as a Concept; Socialization and Gender as a Social Construct and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression or SOGIE. The resource speakers were Ms. Shaunell Mary J. Sayson and Mr. Jose Benito C. Ronolo. Newly-designated GAD focal person Dr. Marichu B. Montecillo facilitated the orientation.

The orientation was anchored on the different mandates and legal bases such as the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW, Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) , Philippine Commission on Women (PCW), and Commission on Higher Education (CHED). It was also done to achieve one of GAD unit’s objectives, which is to promote gender awareness, sensitivity, and increase participation in GAD related activities among employees of BukSU through training workshops and seminars.

Organizers said the session was aimed at strengthening gender awareness and foster understanding on sex, gender social construct, cultural roles expected across genders, behaviors, capacities, intellectual, emotional and social characteristics.

The sessions also depicted differing perceptions of social institutions to foster awareness on sex disaggregation systems which promotes roles differentiation. The topics were intended to empower participants to harness “culture of respect”.

Dr. Monticello said in the end people live in a diverse world worthy of equal opportunities.

“No one should be discriminated against based on SOGIE, SOGIE is everyone’s story not just LGBT,” she added.

An awareness of gender across gender spectrum will make participants, in terms of the delivery of instruction, attuned to gender sensitivity principles including awareness as well as of SOGIE as self-identification where respect is the formula for unity amidst diversity.

All 16 satellite campuses were represented in the orientation. (Regie C. Medidas with reports from Gender and Development Unit/OP-Information and Publication Services)