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| (Image Source: Good News Pilipinas) |
Globe Telecom and Caritas Philippines have teamed up to provide extended seed funding as well as digital tools and skills training programs for 500 disadvantaged youth across different parts of the country. The support is aimed at improving student performance and instilling micro-entrepreneurship skills among junior and senior high school students in ten communities considered as priority areas of the Pilipinas Kontra Gutom movement and where Caritas Philippines dioceses have available community partners. These include Mt. Province, Quezon Province and Camarines Sur in Luzon; Capiz and Negros Oriental in Visayas; and Lanao Del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and two communities in Cotabato in Mindanao.
Globe's support is coursed through Caritas Philippines' Alay Kapwa Educational Assistance and Self-Help Groups (SHeG) programs. The Alay Kapwa Educational Assistance program intends to increase the percentage of graduates from poor communities by helping academically challenged youth to graduate from junior and senior high school through accompaniment and tutorial services. Selected students will receive devices plus initial data packages for use in distance learning. They will also be given access to Globe's Digital Thumbprint Program workshops to increase awareness and deepen their understanding of digital citizenship and cybersafety. Likewise, Globe provides the beneficiaries with necessary funding and skills training support through SHeG. The community association channels small monthly savings contributions to create a micro-lending business among members. The program includes capacity building in terms of leadership abilities, skills training in micro-entrepreneurship through digital tools and a one-time capital of Php10,000 to start their own business.
As the country experiences high rates of unemployment, students and parents are more anxious about life after graduation. Addressing both education and livelihood needs enables members of these communities to have a long-term and sustainable approach to fighting poverty through supporting their education and preparing them to contribute to the nation's economy through livelihood capacity-building. “Globe continues to provide holistic interventions through multi-sectoral partnerships. We would like to contribute to an inclusive recovery from this pandemic by providing access to relevant tools, skills training, and ways to enable the disadvantaged sector so they can benefit from the gains of a digital economy,” said Globe Telecom Senior Vice-President for Corporate Communications and Chief Sustainability Officer Yoly Crisanto. For Fr. Tony Labiao Jr., Executive Secretary of Caritas Philippines, “Our commitment has always been to support the marginalized communities’ social transformation. The pandemic has posed greater challenges to our brothers and sisters which left them struggling to acquire quality education and decent livelihood. With this, we are intensifying our efforts to help the most vulnerable communities by providing holistic interventions that can help them thrive despite these challenging times.”
As the new school year rolls around, students maintain class instruction at home through distance learning due to the ongoing health crisis instead of gearing up for in-school classes. However, even before the pandemic, three different multi-country assessments spearheaded by the World Bank (WB) presented poor learning results among Filipino students with more than 80% of them falling below minimum levels of proficiency required for the respective grades. Aside from education, employment and livelihood are among the sectors most affected by the current situation. The latest Labor Force Survey of the Philippine Statistics Office pegged the country's unemployment rate as of June 2021 at 7.7% with the first half of the year averaging at 8.1%. The lack of livelihood affects hunger incidence, especially in low-income families. The latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey conducted last June 2021 shows that 13.6% or an estimated 3.4 million families experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months due to lack of food for them to eat.
