User talk:Alvin dizon

Alvin M. Dizon, 38, is a Cebu City Councilor. He is the chairperson of the City Council's Committee on Housing and co-chairperson of the Committees on Tourism, Local and Foreign Relations, and Youth and sports development. Prior to joining politics, Alvin had been involved in NGO work for the past 18 years. He was the regional coordinator for Asia of the Olof Palme International Center, a Swedish NGO engaged in international cooperation work. He was the co-founder and executive director of the Center for Participatory Governance (CPAG), and former Chairperson of Kaabag sa Sugbo, a network of 27 social development NGOs in Cebu. He has long been an advocate of urban poverty issues and the rights of the urban poor, a cause he took up during his stint as program manager of the Fellowship for Organizing Endeavors (FORGE). As head of the governance NGO, he piloted the participatory approach to local development planning and budgeting in Cebu’s barangays. He facilitated the forging of the city-to-city cooperation between Kortrijk (a city in Belgium) and Cebu City. Under his leadership, CPAG received numerous awards and commendations, including the 2004 Cebu City Charter Day's Award for its work in participatory barangay governance, the 2009 BAYI special award from the Institute of Politics of Governance and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) for promoting women's participation in governance, and a plaque of appreciation from the Cebu City SK Federation for its efforts in capacitating the youth council leaders. Alvin Dizon is a founding member of the political party AKBAYAN and a member of Cebu City BOPK. He graduated from the University of Cebu, took up masteral units in public administration from Cebu Normal University, and pursued extensive studies on international cooperation, social welfare system and the labor movement in Sweden and other European countries.