COTABATO CITY (PIA) – Twenty former overseas Bangsamoro workers have recently earned a National Certificate (NC) II after completing a technical and vocational course in bread and pastry production.
The former overseas workers, or locally known as OBWs, are residents of this city and the provinces of Maguindanao del Norte and Sur.
At the graduation ceremony, three graduates were also honored as “Most Outstanding Trainees” for their knowledge, skills, and positive attitude shown during their training.
Aside from the certificates of completion, the graduates also received a training support fund worth P3,780.00 each from the Ministry of Basic, Higher, and Technical Education—Technical Education and Skills Development (MBHTE-TESD) Maguindanao.
“All of us are truly thankful to the MOLE and the MBHTE-TESD Maguindanao for this empowering opportunity. Now, we finally finished our training, which equipped us with better skills and better livelihood in the future,” said one of the graduates, Rubaina Salik.
The course aims to assist scholars in starting a small business and securing employment as an entrepreneur or industrial worker.
The BARMM’s Ministry of Labor and Employment (MOLE) facilitated the initiative in collaboration with the MBHTE-TESD Maguindanao.
MOLE-Overseas Workers Welfare Bureau (OWWB) Director Annuarudin Tayuan emphasized that the Bangsamoro government is doing its best to look for ways to help former overseas workers to stay in the country and have a decent livelihood.
“We aim to create an economy where OBWs would not need to work abroad just to be able to provide for their families. The Bangsamoro government is not anymore actively encouraging Bangsamoro workers to leave the country to find a livelihood,” he stressed.
Provincial Director Salehk Mangelen of MBHTE-TESD Maguindanao also discussed the interconnected mandates between MOLE and TESD in providing skills training and livelihood programs to the Bangsamoro workers.
“It is the BARMM government’s goal to uplift the lives of Bangsamoro people. We believe that through programs like this, we contribute to that goal. As much as possible, we want Bangsamoro workers to stay in their homeland,” he said. (With reports from MOLE-BARMM)
