33 teachers trained on prevention of child labor

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Up to 33 teachers from across South Upi town in Maguindanao del Sur had been capacitated to help implement in the municipality a foreign-assisted anti-child labor program.

Mayor Reynalbert Insular and education officials in Maguindanao del Sur separately told reporters on Saturday that they were elated with the expansion last week of the Supporting Children’s Rights through Education, the Arts and the Media, or SCREAM project in South Upi.

The SCREAM project is being implemented together by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the government of Japan, the non-government Integrated Resource Development for Tri-People (IRDT) and two other agencies, the education and labor and employment ministries of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

There is a high prevalence of child labor in South Upi due to poverty and children’s lack of access to public schools that the ILO, which is an agency of the United Nations, the government of Japan, the IRDT and the BARMM government are trying to address.

Elias Salazar, ILO’s project officer in BARMM, said on Saturday that they facilitated, along with personnel the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education-BARMM, a capacity-building workshop, from December 13 to 15, for the 33 public teachers in South Upi as part of the preparations for the implementation of the SCREAM project in the area.

“We in the local government unit of South Upi are thankful to all the entities together implementing the SCREAM project that has been expanded to our municipality,” Insular said on Saturday.

The SCREAM, aiming to address child labor and encourage parents to send their children to schools, has 14 project modules on children’s health and protection from forced employment to earn additional income for their families.

The office of BARMM’s labor and employment minister, Muslimin Sema, is actively helping implement the SCREAM project in the Bangsamoro region, according to Salazar.

Participants to the three-day SCREAM workshop in South Upi had formulated plans on integrating its modules in their detailed lesson plans and regular learning action circle sessions to maximize the project’s implementation in the municipality.