Laddaran wins BCI APAC 2023 new awards category
Celebrating diversity and inclusivity creates more safe workspaces.
With her outstanding contributions on promoting business continuity and resilience across all gender, Joanna Rose T. Laddaran, a University Extension Specialist III from the University of the Philippines Institute for Small-Scale Industries received the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) Asia Pacific (APAC) Awards 2023 as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Ally / Champion of the Year at the virtual ceremony on August 10, 2023.
Laddaran, an active Research, Extension and Professional Staff (REPS) from UP Diliman and Director of Diversity and Inclusion of the Business Continuity Managers Association of the Philippines (BCMAP), was recognized by BCI as the champion in the new awards category for her remarkable efforts and programs in promoting and creating diverse and inclusive spaces for the MSME sector, Local Government Units, and other stakeholders including the private sector.
Since 2014, Laddaran has been actively involved in the conduct of business continuity planning awareness sessions and capacity-building programs for over 3,000 MSMEs in the Philippines. She is the UP ISSI’s focal person of the Honing Agent for National Disaster Awareness (HANDA) Program: Disaster Preparedness and Business Continuity Planning for MSMEs, and the youngest founding member of the Women’s International Network on Disaster Risk Reduction (WIN DRR) – Philippine Chapter.
“Working with the UP ISSI for more than ten (10) years, I have been exposed to the challenges faced by the Philippine MSME sector. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the vulnerabilities of MSMEs, more so, the marginalized sectors including women-led MSMEs in the formal and informal sectors,” Laddaran shared.
She emphasized that she has seen firsthand the impacts of disasters in the most vulnerable and marginalized communities, and this made her realize that the effects are never gender-neutral.
“I believe I can make a valuable contribution towards developing and harnessing the resilience of MSMEs in the country with the help of our team from the UP ISSI including our Gender and Development Committee, as well as our partners from the WIN DRR – Philippine Chapter, and the BCMAP,” she added.
“We promote our advocacy here in ISSI through our programs like the Communities of Practice for Entrepreneurship (COPE) where we can provide a platform for the voices of women-led and LGBTQIA+-led MSMEs to be heard and be amplified,” she said during the interview.
Laddaran expressed her gratitude that the international organization recognized their initiatives in promoting business continuity and resilience-building for MSMEs particularly for the marginalized sectors in the country.
The BCI Awards recognizes professionals and organizations worldwide as these are one of the most prestigious awards in the business continuity and resilience community.
Laddaran is also a recipient of the Gawad Tsanselor para sa Natatanging REPS (Extension Cluster) in UP Diliman in 2021, and the BCI APAC Awards under the category Continuity and Resilience Professional in the Public Sector both in 2020 and 2021.