Quezon City Men Graduate from CTDI, Receive TESDA Certification

Twenty-six men from Bagong Silangan, Payatas, Commonwealth, and Batasan in Quezon City recently graduated from a special short-term course on carpentry and masonry  at the CCT Training and Development Institute, Magdalena, Laguna campus.  Except for two, the men  passed assessment tests given by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, have received certification from the agency, and now have a better chance for employment.

The men are  husbands, sons, nephews, and in-laws of CCT micro finance community partners.

Graduation day, held in Bagong Silangan,  was a much-awaited and joyful event for the men and their families since many of them had never completed high school or grade school.

The course was run in partnership with the Wholistic Transformation Resource Center.  A second group of 30 men will start similar training this month.

TDI Students Have Jobs on US Embassy Grounds

TDI students wait for their turn to be interviewed by
Engr. Rafael Ian Ilagan, building construction contractor. 

Tyron Sarmiento (seated, in white shirt) marketing officer for the
 Covenant Community Service Cooperative joins the pre-service
interviews. 

The students try on new safety shoes and reflective vest
a few days before they start work. 

Twelve students at the CCT Training and Development Institute-Magdalena Campus have been blessed with a contract that will have them working  at the US embassy from November 2012 to March 2013.  Five electrical maintenance students and seven plumbing students – who simply needed a place where they could get on-the-job training – got full paying jobs when they were hired by a building contractor who has a construction project on the US embassy grounds in Manila. 

After March they will go back to TDI to complete the rest of their one-year building maintenance course
which includes masonry and carpentry. 

The TDI curriculum provides its students  with the basic knowledge, practices, techniques, and skills they need to succeed in a career in building maintenance and combines this with several months of on-the-job training. 

The young men are sons of micro entrepreneurs  receiving micro finance assistance from CCT's Savings and Credit Cooperative. Many of them could have spent years being unskilled and jobless but with God’s intervention in their lives they have fresh hope not just for themselves but for their families too.

Bayanihan at the Magdalena Campus

 

Ruth Callanta, CCT president, and head office staff, friends and children joined AMG Skilled Hands College scholars, Alternative Learning System students, and Kaibigans (former street dwellers) for a day of bayanihan work at the CCT Training and Development Institute (CTDI) - Magdalena campus shortly  before its opening in August last year. (Bayanihan is based on a Filipino tradition from long ago when neighbors would help a relocating family by hoisting that family's bamboo hut on their shoulders and moving it to its new location. Today the word has come to mean the spirit of communal unity, cooperation and volunteerism.)  The bayanihan workers cleared away construction debris, planted saplings and perennials, washed windows and walls, and painted bed frames to help ready the campus for its first batch of students.

Ruth Callanta briefs volunteers on work areas and activities.

AMG Skilled Hands Technological College students (CCT scholars)

Ana Mae Labanero, manager, CTDI

Rose Salvador, accountant, Kaibigan Ministry

An Alternative Learning System student

Eunice,daughter of Luz Saludo,
 HR officer, Kaibigan Ministry

Cherry Espino, peer servant, research and development unit. 

Monchito Callanta

Alvin Leo Bonjoc, accountant, CTDI

Cynthia Frane, administrative assistant

Volunteers workers share reflections on doing bayanihan
 work at the end of a fruitful day.