DOLE program aims to support IT-literate out-of-school youths

CEBU, Philippines - The Department of Labor and Employment Central Visayas regional office launched yesterday their “Kabataan ITo” project in Cebu in line with their advocacy to help youths gain their own source of income and at the same time help other youths to further boost the efforts of the community in mitigating hunger problems in the country.

DOLE-7 Regional Director Elias Cayanong said that the “Kabataan ITo” project is done to gather youths who are literate in Information Technology and would also be able to share their literacy in the field to out of school youths.

Cayanong said that they will be hiring around 350 computer-literate youths who are presently unemployed and are willing to share their knowledge to the out of school youths and other members of their generation that are disadvantaged.

He added that not only will this help the youth mentors who will be given P25 per hour, but this would also help those in their generation who are seeking to find better jobs to support their needs.

He said that this would greatly open opportunities for the youths in finding jobs since there are a lot of vacancies in companies needing computer literate employees.

Cayanong said that throughout the learning process, they would not only learn the operations of the computer but as well as other needed tools to qualify for jobs like the qualities, personality development and even communicating with those in one’s environment.

He said that in the present age of emerging BPO companies in Cebu for example, this are the qualities and skills needed from the applicants and the training would greatly help them prepare. —AJ de la Torre