FACEBOOK, the world’s leading social media platform, has partnered with the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration to empower migrant Filipino workers and their families to fully harness the positive component of online networking and communication technology, the Labor department said in a statement on Sunday.
The partnership will be implemented through digital literacy seminars to help the workers and their families know the right use of social media and enable them to participate in building a positive and respectful community online, the department said.
The digital literacy seminars will also provide small business training for Filipino workers with an entrepreneurial skill to prepare them for their eventual return to the country.
OWWA’s launching of the tie-up with Facebook was one of the highlights of the 2018 Migrant Workers’ Day celebration with the theme Kabuhayan at Teknolohiya para sa OFWs at Pamilya held at the Philippine International Convention Center and was attended by 2,000 migrant workers and their families.
OWWA also signed a Memorandum of Agreement between it and Coca-Cola Far East Limited to further strengthen its reintegration program through the entrepreneurship pathway specifically for returning female workers.
“Livelihood has always been an integral component of the reintegration program of OWWA. Given the onset of technology and the power of social media, we must take advantage of these platforms to more economic uses,” said OWWA Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III recognized the Filipino migrant workers’ hard work, skill and talent as they face challenges in the global economy.
“Kabayanihan ang inyong pagsasakripisyo at pagsisikap sa bawat larangan ng kabuhayan at produktibong trabaho saan man kayo naroon,” Bello said.
OWWA also mounted a job fair with 47 participating employers that offered local and overseas employment for displaced migrant workers from Saudi Arabia.
The Migrant Workers’ Day is celebrated every June 7 by virtue of Republic Act 8042 of the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act signed on June 7, 1995.