4th year BS Health Sciences students receive 2023 ASCEND Senior Excellence Award

This year’s ASCEND Senior Excellence Award was given to a remarkable group of 4th year BS Health Sciences students composed of Ma. Daniella Louise Aoanan, JC Glenn Berdin, Sheanne Izabel Cabantac, Bianca Ysabel Hidalgo, John Paulo Mendoza, Dean Ellis Ong, and Rachel Margaret Paguia for their research entitled “From City Beautiful to Healthy Cities: Narratives of Disability, and Persons with Visual Impairments in the Built Environment of Baguio City since 1904”. Dr. Nicolo Paolo Ludovice was their faculty adviser.

Their group was duly recognized for their inspiring work during the annual awarding ceremony referred to as “PAGHAHANDOG: A Celebration of Student Leadership and Service” which was held last 23 June 2023 at the Leong Hall Auditorium.

Their study sought to investigate the interrelations of disability, urban health, and a built environment that has historically been designed and constructed for the non-disabled. They delved into this dominant narrative of ableism institutionalized within the built environment of cities that hinder the societal participation of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) with the aim to include and raise the narrative of the PWD through their lived experience and urban health outcomes that arise from their physical interactions with the built environment.

Their group collaborated with the Persons with Disabilities Affairs Office (PDAO) of the Municipality of Baguio and with the Baguio Organization of the Blind and proceeded to gather the stories of the visually-impaired community in order to bring their lived experiences to light. 

From these narratives and through consultations with historians, urban planners and engineers, government officials, NGO workers, and disability specialists, their group put together the first ever PWD sensitivity manual in the country, co-authored and shared with the Baguio PDAO, geared towards equipping the leaders from the 128 barangays under PDAO’s leadership, with the necessary knowledge, language, and legislative basis to cater better to the needs of the PWD population.

Every year, the Ateneo Socio-Civic Engagement for National Development (ASCEND) Awards honors undergraduate, senior, and graduate students for projects and research work that demonstrate mastery of subject matter while engaging communities and institutions outside the Ateneo in contributing to national development. Projects are development interventions that have been implemented with observable impact while research work contributes to knowledge creation with the potential for social impact.

Among the various forms of recognition given out as part of ASCEND, the highest would be the ASCEND Excellence award which is given to a particular project or research work that is deemed to be the most outstanding in either the Undergraduate, Senior, or Graduate level as it manifests in an extraordinary manner, all three of the following criteria:

1. Extraordinary mastery of subject matter and application of synthetic thinking
2. Deep and extensive engagement with partner communities and institutions
3. The addressing of a national development concern in a strongly strategic and creative manner with very significant short-term impact on target beneficiaries and/or the potential for significant longer term impact in promoting the well-being of the greatest number.

Photos courtesy of the recipients of the 2023 ASCEND Senior Excellence Award