MD-MBA project "Kuwentong Kalusugan" receives 2025 ASCEND Excellence Award

This year’s ASCEND Excellence Award for Postgraduate Coursework Project was awarded to Jericho Dugenia, Alexandra Marcelo, Alyssa San Felipe, Martin Tan, and Sophia Vivar, Year Eight MD-MBA students, for their research entitled, “Kwentong Kalusugan: Pag-unawa sa Karaniwang Karamdaman sa Komunidad.”

Their Faculty Adviser is Dr Ingrid Mejia Paneda and their Partner Community are Barangays West Crame and Corazon de Jesus.

Their group was commended for showing how storytelling can transform community health education. The award was presented during the Ateneo Service Learning Conference (ASLC) and Ateneo Socio-Civic Engagement For National Development (ASCEND) “Beyond the Common Good, Strive for the Common Good” held on 13 June 2025 at Escaler Hall.

The project employs creative storytelling and participatory engagement to educate residents—children, parents, and elders—of Barangays West Crame and Corazon de Jesus about common ailments such as coughs, colds, hypertension, and diabetes. The team produced illustrated children’s books, designed interactive health workshops, and developed simple vital signs monitoring tools to improve health literacy. Medical students and local volunteers facilitated health talks, symptom identification activities, and Q&A sessions, encouraging preventive behaviors and timely care-seeking. By fostering community ownership of well-being, the project aims to reduce disease incidence, strengthen local health-seeking practices, and promote sustainable, healthy lifestyles.

Congratulations to the Awardees!

Watch a short video about their project:

The University recognizes students whose work makes a significant impact through the Ateneo Socio-Civic Engagement for National Development (ASCEND). This year, ASCEND honored senior high school, undergraduate, and graduate students based at the Loyola campus and the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health whose projects and research outputs demonstrated subject mastery and the capacity for synthetic thinking while meaningfully engaging communities beyond Ateneo in contributing to national development.

The ASCEND Excellence Award is given to outstanding individuals and groups of students whose project or research work demonstrates, in an extraordinary manner, all three of the following:

1. Extraordinary mastery of subject matter and application of synthetic thinking.
2. Deep and extensive engagement with partner communities and/or institutions.
3. Addresses a national development concern in a strongly strategic and/or 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.

You may access the Book of Abstracts here: https://go.ateneo.edu/2025ASLCASCENDBookofAbstracts

Photo courtesy of 2025 ASCEND Official Photos and Kwentong Kalusugan Group