International Women's Month is a global celebration of women's social, economic, cultural, and political achievements. The day also serves as a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Worldwide, there are lots of activities as people come together to celebrate women's achievements or to rally for women's equality.

Marked annually on March 8th, International Women's Day (IWD) is one of the most important days of the year to:

• celebrate women's achievements

• raise awareness about women's equality

• lobby for accelerated gender parity

• fundraise for female-focused charities

With this, DCWD annually participates to the event to intensify the awareness of everyone on the rights of women and celebrate women's significant contribution in the society.

Sexual harassment in the workplace is a serious problem, and although employees know that it exists, many are unsure of what to do if they become a victim. Usually, the burden of preventing sexual harassment rests on the employer. They are responsible for ensuring that their employees operate in an atmosphere that is free of discrimination and harassment. As a result, employers are compelled by law to take efforts to prevent and address workplace harassment. If an employer fails to take all reasonable steps to prevent and address workplace harassment, the employer may be held accountable for any harassment that occurs, even if the employer was unaware of the harassment.

As a gender-responsive agency, DCWD is committed on educating the community on both sexual harassment laws and the nation's law. With this, an "Anti-Sexual Harassment Law Seminar" was sponsored by the organization. This is an essential step of DCWD in protecting women as well as men from becoming a victim of sexual harassment. When one knows his/her rights, they will know when they are being violated and will be empowered to defend their self.

Before achieving gender equality, the need to understand the concept of GENDER is necessary. With this, DCWD partners with different organization and extends their hand to different communities in conducting training on gender and development (GAD) to effect social and institutional change that leads to sustainable development with equity and growth to both men and women.

Gender and Development (GAD) Training aims to enhance the gender-responsive planning of key institutions and the management skills of their employees, so that they can effectively play their part in implementing gender-sensitive development policies as well as mainstreaming gender in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, SDG’s.

Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December — the day the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. (UDHR). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a landmark declaration that declares that everyone, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, language, political or other viewpoint, country or socioeconomic background, has inalienable rights as a human being.

In DCWD, we are committed to put human rights as the center of our GAD mainstreaming efforts. We understand that we will only achieve gender equality if we create equal opportunities for all and use human rights norms to address entrenched inequality, exclusion, and discrimination. Hence, DCWD annually celebrates human rights day by reaching out to the community especially to those oppressed and . Through this, DCWD have shown that we can take action in our daily lives to protect the rights that protect us all by supporting these advocacies and promote human kinship.

Last 2019, DCWD in coordination with Mindanao Development Authority, formulated the GAD policy framework of DCWD. The GAD Policy Framework aims to provide guidance to all GFPS, managers and staff who have responsibility for developing policy documents and identifying the need for a GAD policies to help the organization meet its strategic objectives and/or ensure legal and regulatory compliance. Through this, DCWD will be able to ensure that the organization has consistent standards for relevant and up to date governance documentation. .

To be able to understand further the needs of the community and address issues related to gender roles and equality, DCWD has initiated in conducting focus group discussions.

Focus group discussion allows effective interaction with the participants which may lead to discussion of concepts not otherwise covered by the moderators. The conduct was successful and relevant information were solicited from the participants which was considered in the preparation of annual GAD plans and budget and the GAD agenda.

To date, focus group discussions in the community were usually done virtually to avoid face-to-face interactions in times of this pandemic.

Gender analysis refers to the variety of methods used to understand the relationships between men and women, their access to resources, their activities, and the constraints they face relative to each other. Gender analysis provides information that recognizes that gender, and its relationship with race, ethnicity, culture, class, age, disability, and/or other status, is important in understanding the different patterns of involvement, behaviour and activities that women and men have in economic, social and legal structures.

With DCWD's vision to be the best and gender-responsive water and waste water provider, the organization is committed to determine the arising gender issues that would affect the gender equality between access to and control over our water resource.

Around the world, the COVID-19 crisis has catalyzed huge changes in our personal and working lives. For many people, the past few months have been intense and most of us are all still adapting to this ‘new normal’. On the onset of the pandemic, we continue to visit communities but with heightened health protocols observed. However, given with the rising cases of COVID, face-to-face events are no longer practiced, and people were encouraged to just stay at home. With this, some of the gender mainstreaming efforts of DCWD especially with the GAD Attribution was put on hold.

Since it is our goal to intensify GAD in the organization and to its external stakeholders, it is DCWD's goal to continue with GAD mainstreaming. Since we are not allowed to go to communities and do consultations, we resorted to using the virtual platform instead where participants and key informants from different agencies and barangays were invited to solicit their concerns on gender and water. Through this, we have gathered relevant information that we could use to strengthen GAD.