We leaned into something often overlooked in local government project management:
When your manpower is limited and your community engagement is spread thin, every connection matters.
That was the reality for us at the ICT Division. We had programs, initiatives, and plans—but not enough hands to reach every classroom, every student, every teacher. So, we tried something different. We leaned into something often overlooked in local government project management: the power of strategic relationships.
The Challenge of Limited Capacity
We needed a way to scale our ICT programs without burning out our small team. Traditional outreach—school visits, workshops, and one-off training—wasn’t sustainable. The problem wasn’t interest; it was access and capacity. Schools wanted to participate, but we couldn’t be everywhere at once.
That’s when the idea of organizing ICT Clubs came in. What if we created structure, leadership, and ownership inside the schools themselves? Instead of us reaching out to everyone, we built a system where information, training, and advocacy could spread internally—through students and teachers.
The Process: Student Leadership as a Force Multiplier
We started by facilitating elections for ICT student leaders and teacher-advisers. These elections weren’t just symbolic. They were strategic. By empowering students and teachers to lead, we effectively built a distributed team across the entire school network.
Each ICT Club became a micro-unit of our division—acting as extension arms that could coordinate quickly, roll out programs faster, and relay needs directly back to us. And because they were embedded in the school, they knew what worked best in their context.
Building with What You Have
This experience taught us a valuable lesson about local government project management: it doesn’t have to look like construction timelines or engineering drawings. It can look like students organizing a tech seminar. It can look like a teacher leading a workshop on digital literacy.
When you build with intention—and include the right people—you get results that are not only efficient but also community-owned.
We’re continuing this model and refining it. If you’re part of an LGU or school looking to build similar structures, we’re open to sharing our blueprint.