The Rural Communication Working Group will be holding elections for one vice-chair position, for the term 2023 – 2027.
The elections will be held online from 24 May until 14 June using the SurveyMonkey platform.
Individual members and representatives of institutional members in good standing, who are also registered as members of the Rural Communication working group will be eligible to stand for a position and to vote. To verify if you are a member of the RUC working group, log in to your account and click on "My Sections and Working Groups".
The deadline to receive candidate statements was 17 May.
The current Head comprises two co-chairs, Rico Lie and Sarah Cardey, and will change its composition to two co-chairs and one vice-chair.
Read about the Rural Communication Working Group
More information and timeline at https://iamcr.org/s-wg/elections2023
Candidate
- Maria Stella C. Tirol (College of Development Communication, University of the Philippines Los Baños)
Statements
Maria Stella C. Tirol (College of Development Communication, University of the Philippines Los Baños)
Dr. Tirol is the current Dean of the College of Communication, University of the Philippines. She is the College’s frontline practitioner when it comes to evaluation of communication programs. She recently completed a project of the Agricultural Training Institute on results-based evaluation of the e-learning program on agriculture and fisheries. She finished a study on communication, evaluation, and policy formulation of research-based information on muyong-payoh systems in Banaue, Ifugao.
Her expertise is on educational communication, community broadcasting, agricultural systems communication, participatory development communication, and communication planning, design, testing, and evaluation. She has served as resource person in more than 40 training courses for UPLB and other state institutions, various government agencies, NGOs, and international organizations. She was consultant or team leader for communication research and extension programs on agricultural and rural development funded by local and foreign agencies. The Philippine local agencies include the Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Training Institute, UP Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, National Research Council of the Philippines, UPLB Basic Research Program, and the Department of Science and Technology. The international agencies comprise UN-FAO, UN-IFAD, IDRC-Canada and Singapore, UNICEF, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and Asian Development Bank (ADB), AUSAID, Philippine-Australia Short Term Assistance, and ACIAR.
She served as ComDev consultant for an IFAD project on rural radio initiatives for coastal climate resilience infrastructure project in Bangladesh in 2015-2016. She was study leader for the program on communication strategies and action plans in promoting rice-white corn combination as staple food of Filipinos (2016-2017). She served consultant for the project on production of DVD training video on pest and disease monitoring of cassava from September 1 – November 1, 2016. She was one of the international consultants for the FAO-funded project on enhancing rural communication services for agricultural development in Bangladesh from 2010-2013. She accumulated a wealth of experience with development communication projects on participatory broadcasting, adaptive learning and linkages for community-based natural resource management, food security, and climate change. She co-authored several articles published in refereed journals as well as chapters in a book with focus on communication for development.