In its second year (AY 2019-2020), the David and Ruth Hopper and Ramesh and Pilar Bhatia Canada Fellowship in the Philippines at the IPC ADMU in partnership with the International Development Research Centre welcomed Ms. Alecz Gabrielle Fernandez (MS Environmental Science) and Ms. Josephine Perez (PhD in Leadership Studies) as research fellows.
Analyzing the effects of the increase in “impervious areas” or those with little to no water passing through, Ms. Alecz Fernandez focused her work on Cagayan de Oro City, one of the highly urbanized cities in Mindanao, Philippines.
Photo sourced by Ms. Fernandez.
Responding to steady population growth, more cities undergo massive urbanization, however, it has also caused an increase in the number of impervious areas, and cities experience more destructive flooding events. Using geographic information systems and flood modeling, Ms. Fernandez investigated how this increase affect the flooding extent. This research hopes to contribute to disaster risk and mitigation and inform local land-use policies in CDO and other similar areas.
With decades of experience in peace education, capacity-building, peace advocacy, and conflict transformation, Dr. Josephine Perez’s work examined the role of Filipino women leaders in peace processes by understanding their positioning at the peace table through a discursive approach. Insights from the members of the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) peace panels will constitute the data to be analyzed by Ms. Perez in the hopes of contributing to a better understanding of women’s role in peace processes and inform future programs.
As part of the second cohort of fellows, Ms. Fernandez and Ms. Perez received tuition and fieldwork subsidy funded by the IDRC and participated in skills enhancement training workshops conducted by the IPC. Ms. Fernandez and Dr. Perez have successfully completed their MA and PhD degrees respectively this 2020.
Ms. Fernandez and Dr. Perez worked on research that seeks to contribute to the formation of evidence-based policies and programs. The Hopper-Bhatia Research Fellowship Program seeks to highlight research that is able to engage local context in order to provide new insight into societal issues.
The Hopper-Bhatia Fellowship Program has opened its second intake for its third year (AY 2020 -2021). The program looks forward to working with and engaging more scholars in the early stages of their careers.
To know more about the ongoing call for applications for the Year 3 intake, please visit bit.ly/HopperBhatiaY3.