The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has institutionalized support for the Caritas Philippines Academy “as the learning and training institute of our Catholic Church.”
In a circular released on November 8, Archbishop Romulo Valles, CBCP president, said the academy will be able to improve the competence of social action and development works.
“As we celebrate this year the 500 Years of Christianity in the Philippines, the Caritas Philippines Academy will be the Philippine Church’s legacy and contribution to the on-going formation and development of the social action works in the country,” said the prelate.
Formerly the Center for Resiliency, Empowerment and Integral Development (CREED), the institution was inaugurated in 2019 mainly to instill professional competence within the Social Action Network (SAC) and other partners of Caritas.
Caritas envisions to develop the academy based in Tagaytay City “as the national repository of important social action documents, best practices and studies which will make sure we have the needed baseline data to inform and improve our program implementation.”
Prior to the inauguration of the academy, Caritas in 2016 started with the Lead to Heal Transformational Leadership Program through a 14-month certificate course in partnership with the Development Academy of the Philippines and the Future by Design Pilipinas.
In 2018, a master’s degree on Social Services and Development was offered with the Asian Social Institute.
During the pandemic in 2020, eight short online courses were offered covering topics like resource mobilization, communications, safeguarding and protection mainstreaming, ecology protection and advocacies, and social enterprise development.
