IPs get skills training to improve their lives

MANILA, Philippines - The public is familiar with the Aetas of Central Luzon due to their well-documented plight during the Mt. Pinatubo eruption where much of Pampanga got covered in lahar.

Decades have passed and much has been done to help alleviate their condition. Their battle for survival and their need to cope with changing times are still far from over.

This is true for an Aeta community in Pampanga, whose members had to go their separate ways after the Mt. Pinatubo calamity. Some are now living in Bulacan and Nueva Ecija, with only 800 families opting to remain in Pampanga. Helping them is a tall order, but  is something that needs to be done for the long-term.

Tuloy Foundation Inc.(TFI), a non-profit organization that transforms the poor, homeless and abandoned into contributing members of society, knows this only too well.

Recently TFI held an outreach program in Barangay Sapang Uwak for the benefit of a community of Aetas in Porac, Pampanga.

The program was held during the 61st anniversary of the Philippine Army’s Civil Military Operations Group (CMOG), and a number of private companies like Leonio Land and Ayala Land supported to the program.

“We’re here not to be thanked, but to give thanks,” Fr. Eugenio Innocencio III of TFI said in opening the program.

One of the highlights of the outreach is a computer literacy program, which illustrates the community support and partnership that TFI aspires for.

Using the academic expertise of TFI, CMOG and private sector partners will work together in teaching basic computer skills to beneficiaries.

The first phase had 30 children and young adults representing livelihood cooperatives at an Aeta community in Barangay Sapang Uwak taking part in a two-week computer literacy program. After graduation, they were asked to transfer knowledge they have acquired to other members of the community.

Capt. Rey Villareal (left) accepts a keyboard from Fr. Eugenio Innocencio III of TFI symbolizing the formal turnover of a mobile 40-foot computer laboratory to the 702nd Infantry Brigade donation of the Philippine Army for the Computer Literacy Program in Barangay Sapang Uwak, Porac, Pampanga.

To ensure that the computer literacy program could reach even far-flung communities in Porac, a 40-foot mobile container van was converted into a computer laboratory with 25 computers worth P4 million.

Aside from Barangay Sapang Uwak, other areas in Porac include Villa Maria, Diaz, Kamias and Inararo.

According to TFI, the computer literacy program forms a foundation for speedier and more efficient academic learning for children.

The technological know-how and renewed confidence can give adult beneficiaries a better chance at employment in the private sector, especially with the projected commercial and industrial growth in the province.

One key growth area that TFI is looking at is a 1,125-hectare integrated mixed-use project to be put up in Porac by Leonio Land in partnership with Ayala Land. This development project is envisioned to be the growth center of Central Luzon.

Computer skills are a necessity in offices and establishments that will soon open in the new development, and in allied industries such as manufacturing and tourism.

Barangay Captain Condrado dela Cruz, one of the leaders of the Aeta community in Barangay Sapang Uwak, expressed appreciation for the program, saying, “Our fellowmen will now have an opportunity to work in the lowlands using their new knowledge and skills in computers.”