Why the Pilar Hidalgo Lim Troop Achievement Award? 

The Pilar Hidalgo Lim Troop Achievement Award was conceptualized in the year 2000 to encourage Girl Scout troops to exemplify the Girl Scout Promise and Law by becoming pro-active in community development.

This is to recognize the important role of the troops in their respective communities and to memorialize the significant role of Pilar Hidalgo Lim in the formal organization of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines (GSP). The Luis H. Lim Memorial Foundation, Inc. has given a lifetime endowment to the GSP by donating Two Million Pesos for the said Troop Achievement Award through the Chairman of the Foundation and GSP Past National President Dr. Estefania Aldaba Lim.

The Pilar Hidalgo Lim Troop Achievement Award aims to encourage community development and ensure that the programs undertaken by the troop are indeed what the community members consider important for their locality.

The troop helps the community members find out what for them are priority needs in their community. They carefully plan, undertake the activities on a yearly basis and continuously monitor and evaluate their project/s to ensure that activities are undertaken as planned.

Twelve outstanding troops will be selected as awardees for their role in community development in whatever area the troop and the community have decided to undertake, e.g. health, environment, cultural heritage, livelihood, food production and others. The Troop will be judged according to its ability to cooperate with one another to ignite the flame of cooperation within the members of the community and to serve as models for community participation within their respective communities. The award will be given for one year work undertaken by the troops within their community.

Troop Requirements 

The Pilar Hidalgo Lim Troop Achievement Award is open to all registered Junior, Senior and Cadet troops that planned, implemented, and sustained a community development project for a  period  of one (1)  year.

• The troop should be registered for at least three consecutive years.
• A troop may start the project anytime of the year.
• Each girl in the troop must have earned at least five badges on the 8-Point Challenge Program.

To Quality for the Award

• identify a depressed community/purok (in consultation with DSWD);
• meet  the   community   leaders  to   discuss   the possible project which can be carried out between  the  troop  and the community members on any identified need of the community such as:

1. greening the highway
2. feeding program for malnourished children
3. conducting mother’s class for responsible parenthood
4. information dissemination to out-of-school youth on Adolescent Health
5. seedling bank
6. beautification
7. putting up a playground for children
8. organizing a rondalla
9. promoting the culture of indigenous people in our country
10. vegetable gardening
11. adopting a watershed
12. literacy program

• prepare the timetable with the community members;
• organize the working groups;
• identify and tap possible resources which could help carry out the project;
• send  an  application  form  to  National  Headquarters  through  the Council/Regional offices (anytime during the year);
• implement the project according to the timetable;
• evaluate  the  project  with  the  community  members; find  out  their  difficulties  and lessons learned;
• submit report to National Headquarters using the Report Form.

Selection Process

1. Based on the same troop requirements, each region evaluates all the troop candidates from her region and decides which two troops working on PHL projects shall be presented the PILAR HIDALGO LIM TROOP ACHIEVEMENT AWARD for a given year.
2.  By the 2^nd week of February, the NHQ should have already received the reports and evaluation forms of the two winners from each region.
3.  Three National Evaluators (composed of the Program Committee Member/s and the Program Director) shall visit and evaluate all the twelve winners from the six regions. From among them will be chosen the first three troops with the most outstanding PHL community development projects.
4.  The National Evaluators will visit the finalists in the last week of March or first two weeks of April.

The Awards

1. All twelve winners will receive certificates of recognition. They shall also receive the following cash prizes:

• 1^st  prize   –   P50,000.00
• 2^nd prize   –      35,000.00
• 3^rd prize    –      20,000.00

The other winners (the remaining 9) shall receive P10,000.00 each.

2. They shall be awarded every 24^th day of May which is the birthday of Pilar Hidalgo Lim.

3. The winning troops may use the awards for any Girl Scout activity, purchase of troop equipment, etc.