Tulay: Bridging distances with IT

Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) can now "upgrade" their marketable skills and those of their dependents as the third phase of "Tulay: An unlimited potential program for OFWs" begins.

A joint undertaking of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) and Microsoft Phils., this phase of the Tulay program aims to bridge distances – both physical and intellectual – for our country’s new heroes and heroines using information technology (IT).

"Many OFWs go abroad to work as domestic helpers," OWWA Administrator Marianito Roque said at the program launch recently. "Now our nannies can help their employers institute Internet security in the homes where they work because they now know how to use the Internet."

Internet security has become a vital worldwide concern, particularly because of data theft and the easy availability of pornographic materials, which children may access online if left unsupervised.

The Tulay project aims to help OFWs "gain IT skills that will enhance their work, thus increasing their value in the workplace," the OWWA said in a pamphlet.

"The skills they will learn will further help them become competitive and empower them when they decide to pursue a career when they come home from abroad," it added.

Some of the program’s alumni have already reaped the benefits of computer training, Roque said.

"One of our graduates has been moved up, from a post as a domestic helper to one as a trusted office worker encoding and managing her employer’s business correspondence," he said.

Building on partnerships

n the previous phases of the project, Microsoft partnered with the Filipino Workers Resource Center (FWRC) in Malaysia and the Filipino Overseas Workers in Singapore (FOWS) through the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in 2004 to establish community technology learning centers (CTLCs) – Ople Hall in the OWWA building in Pasay City, the Bayanihan Center in Singapore, and the Philippine Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The curriculum for these short two- to four-day courses was created at the Microsoft head office in Redmond, Virginia and approved by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).

The Redmond curriculum "has been customized for teaching OFWs the computer skills they must learn, such as spreadsheet programs, word processing, chat, video-conferencing and the like," said Mae Rivera-Moreno, Microsoft’s public relations and community affairs manager.

These CTLCs provide a venue where OFWs and their dependents are given free training in IT skills – training that would otherwise cost $10 for each course.

The second phase of the Tulay initiative involved Microsoft’s partnership with OWWA and resulted in the setup of CTLCs in Hong Kong, Taichung in Taiwan and Cebu.

Using a P4-million grant and computer hardware and software donated by Microsoft, the OWWA provides training in the use of basic computer applications, including Microsoft Office, PowerPoint, MSN Chat, Word and Excel.

At the completion of these courses, trainees receive certification from Microsoft that they may proudly add to their resumés – a certification which is accepted worldwide.

Microsoft donated P3 million worth of software and hardware, as well as a cash grant of P4 million for this phase of the project.

The project has enjoyed such popularity among its beneficiaries that the OWWA satellite office in the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) now also hosts a CTLC.

With its third phase, OWWA seeks to expand the reach of the Tulay project, which is part of Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential (UP) global initiative.

A grant of P3 million and P2.7 million worth of state-of-the art computers, peripherals and software from Microsoft enable OWWA to open CTLCs in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh, San Fernando City in La Union, and Cagayan de Oro City.

These CTLCs have facilities that enable users to communicate with their families via e-mail, video-conferencing and chat – facilities that bridge the gap of loneliness between an OFW and his or her family and allow the OFW to participate in the daily life of his or her kin using IT.

In a statement read by Roque, Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas said the program is designed to help "OFWs and their families receive TESDA-accredited training... (and) those already familiar with basic computer programs are provided with more advanced courses" such as webpage design."

The Tulay launch was held in conjunction with the commemoration of the late Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople’s birthday.

Ople is credited with being the country’s "father of overseas employment" during his tenure in the 1970s as labor minister to then President Ferdinand Marcos at a time when the OFW exodus began with workers seeking employment in the Middle East.

"The project envisions that OFWs will have better peace of mind and, thus, promote and maximize their productivity at the jobsites with the assurance that they have direct contact and can monitor their families on an active, day-to-day basis," Sto. Tomas said.

Such direct contact and "direct intervention" will help OFWs and their families "have better relevance in the family unit’s daily activities and concerns."

Moreno said 6,000 OFWs and their dependents benefited from the first year of the first phase of the Tulay program and she hopes "to see more people benefit from this initiative."

So great was the program’s success that Moreno said, "We want to keep doing this for our OFWs and that is why Microsoft provides grant assistance and software and equipment donations each year."

Expanding horizons

"We want to expand (the OFWs’) horizons," Microsoft Phils. managing director Antonio Javier said. "We also want to help ease their loneliness and fight the degradation of family ties because (these OFWs) have to leave their families behind to earn and provide for them. This is our way of saying thank you."

These OFWs, he said, "have helped strengthen the peso and they are helping to keep the economy going. The least we can do is help them keep in touch with their families and to help them improve their skills so they can have a better life."

Progressing from teaching the basics of computer use, the Tulay project now aims to increase OFWs’ connectivity to the world and home via the Internet.

After the first year of these CTLCs’ operations, OWWA will shoulder their operating expenses.

"We seek continuity and for these centers to be self-sustaining, OWWA will assume the operating costs after the first year," Roque said.

The upkeep of each CTLC ranges between $1,600 and $2,000 a month, and Roque said the funds for maintaining these centers will come from "OWWA member-contributions."

The requirements for availing oneself of the Tulay project’s free training are simple. One must be an OWWA member (past or present) or a spouse or child of an OWWA member. OWWA will confirm this information from its records. An applicant must be prepared to spend at least eight hours a day for two to four days for the training.

Applications will be accepted on a "first-come, first-served" basis, Roque said, adding that no one is too old to attend the Tulay program’s training sessions.

"We have had trainees who are in their sixties," he said. "One grandmother who availed herself of the Tulay training now chats with her grandchildren back home, using a webcam, no less."

OWWA accounts for at least three million of the over eight million OFWs deployed worldwide.

Possibilities

"We are also preparing summer lessons for OWWA members’ children at the CTLCs," Roque said.

He also hopes to open a CTLC in Italy, where there are an estimated 250,000 OFWs. If this plan pushes through, this will be the first CTLC that OWWA and Microsoft will open in Europe.

"The Tulay project’s possibilities are far-reaching," Javier said, noting that 2,400 OFWs leave the country each month.

"Those who undergo training under the Tulay program can avail themselves of distance learning and pursue further studies online. This will enable them to go from unskilled workers or domestic helpers into other career paths that will, in the long run, provide them with better pay," he said.

The CTLC in Riyadh has 30 computers and can accommodate 300 students a week, Roque said.

There, however, will be a slight difference in this CTLC. "Under Saudi law, we must segregate the classes according to gender, so that is what we will do," he said.

Roque said there are an estimated 700,000 to 800,000 OFWs in Saudi Arabia.

At the CTLC in Ople Hall, OWWA trainer Romanito Frias said one of the program’s alumni, a domestic helper based in Hong Kong, reluctantly took the basic training courses during her one-month vacation in Manila.

"When she got back to Hong Kong, she was not only welcomed by her employer, who had insisted that she learn how to use the computer, but she was able to save on cellular phone bills to her boyfriend in Manila," Frias said.

"They spent almost P150,000 in cellphone calls the year before and, now that she can communicate via online chat, they can save money for other things," he said.

The difficulty in training people to use computers and surf the Internet, he added, "is not a matter of age. It is a matter of willingness to learn and determination to succeed. It is always a good feeling to see our trainees learning well."

All in all, Moreno said Tulay "is about opening up new communication lines and new opportunities for our OFWs and their families and it is a beautiful thing to see when they express amazement at the technology we who are tech-savvy take for granted. It is a beautiful and humbling experience and we at Microsoft are glad to be part of it."

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ies may inquire about the Tulay project by calling OWWA at 891-7601 to 24, sending SMS to 0917-8980187, e-mailing [email protected], or logging on to www.owwa.gov.ph.