austraLasia #2893 Skills on Wheels: Street Children Village Goes
Beyond its Walls
MANILA: 21 July 2011 -- Tuloy Sa Don Bosco, the
street children village south of Manila, is reaching out way
beyond the walls of its centre to seek out other youth in
need. On 15 July 2011, Tuloy launched its first ever
mobile school. The 40-foot cube mobile container van
converted into a classroom will benefit a resettlement
community of urban squatters in Laguna, literally a province
by the lake as the name suggests, the new frontier of the
Salesians of the FIN and their seventh community in the
diocese of Salesian bishop Leo Drona.
In a synergy of Salesian forces on behalf
of the poor, both the founder of the street children
village, Fr. Marciano Evangelista, and the pioneer of the
squatters resettlement community, Fr. Salvador Pablo,
believe like Don Bosco that the Salesians will have to adapt
to the needs of the poor youth with a quick reading of the
signs of the times. It is not the youth that have to adapt
to the Salesians and their works.
Mr John Kerr, a Scottish lay volunteer in
the street children village and board member of Tuloy
Foundation, conceived the idea as a response to the growing
number of students who drop out despite free education in
public schools. The most common reason cited was the lack
of money for transportation and the need to work.
Thus, Tuloy Foundation is now venturing out and seeking the
youth-in-need where they are, in order to equip them with
practical skills and values to empower them for work.
“Still, there are more children out
there,” Fr Evangelista said. “We have to do something to
reach out to the children who cannot be accommodated within
the walls of the Street Children Village.” Thus, the Skills
on Wheels (SOW) project was born. As Kerr says, “SOW the
seed of work skills and watch as individuals and their
community grow.”
Initial courses to be offered are
Consumer Electronics and Motorcycle Repair. The Consumer
Electronics course will teach skills for troubleshooting and
repair of electrical appliances such as electric fans, TV,
electrical outlets, circuits and wiring, and cell phone
repair. Graduates will receive a TESDA-accredited National
Certificate 2 (NC-2).
The Motorcycle Repair course has
practical use for a community that uses tricycles as a
common mode of transportation. The course will offer formal
talks from a resource person from a motorcycle company. The
mobile van can hold up to a maximum of 25 students. Classes
will run from Mondays to Fridays for four hours a day. After
finishing these courses, graduates can hopefully use their
acquired knowledge to start their own business right from
their own homes.
After the blessing of the first mobile
van for the resettlement community in Laguna, benefactors of
the Tuloy sa Don Bosco Street Children Village pledged more
vans to come. _________________ AustraLasia
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