Stop TB Partnership Challenge Facility for Civil Society Round 10

TBpeople Philippines Organization Inc. has recently been granted for the StopTB Partnership CFCS Challenged Facility for Civil Society round 10. This is the first grant to be performed by the organization, that is on its 2nd year of legal registration. TBpeople Philippines aims to use this grant on the needed efforts for the sustainability of the TB program in each local government units. This is to provide capacity building and technical assistance on the creation of leaders in regions 3, 4a, and the National Capital Region. In addition, the organization will create a toolkit for the barriers faced by our 20% persons with disability, who has or can have the communicable disease Tuberculosis.

Early 2021 The StopTB Partnership announced the grant application opening for the CFCS (Change Facility for Civil Society) round 10, As per description,  Round 10 of the CFCS will support TB-affected community and civil society organizations to engage in country-level efforts towards advocating, networking and responding to the devastating impact of COVID-19 on the TB response and accelerate action to meet the United Nations Political Declaration on TB global targets on combating tuberculosis (TB) by the 2022 deadline.

The Stop TB Initiative was established following a meeting of the First Ad hoc Committee on the Tuberculosis Epidemic, held in London in March 1998. The meeting addressed rising global concern about a dramatic upsurge in the TB pandemic

The Stop TB Partnership, as it is now known, has evolved into a broad global partnership of over 2,000 partners drawn from TB communities, international and technical organizations, government programs, research and funding agencies, foundations, NGOs, society and community groups, and private sector companies, all committed to eliminating TB as a public health problem by 2030. (Who we are | Stop TB Partnership)

TB remains one of the world’s deadliest airborne infectious diseases, killing some 4,000 people every day, among them 700 children, and close to 15 million people in the last decade. The latest diagnostic tests can rapidly and accurately diagnose TB. New medicines can quickly cure TB. But, in 2020, people are still dying from a disease that should have been eliminated decades ago.

In a first for TB, and in complementarity with the Secretary-General’s report, TB-affected communities and civil society have produced “A Deadly Divide: TB Commitments vs TB Realities” a community-led accountability report that documents how, two years on from the UNHLM, there is a deadly divide between the targets and commitments made on TB and the realities experienced by people affected by TB. (A Deadly Divide: Advocacy & Media Toolkit  – STOPTB Partnership)

The Call to action is clear, we need to work with the TB affected communities and civil societies, to have a more strategic approach in managing TB responses in the affected community. TB People Philippines Organizations response to this is to establish presence in the community. By doing so we will be able to engage the society and communicate with the local government to get started with City dialogues.