USAID-Tagb partner to give

OSY second opportunities

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, March 25, (PIA) –The pandemic scrimp may have pushed teen-agers out of school, but then, hope does not die there, the city of Tagbilaran, in partnership with an international donor, has opened up second chances for them to be back in school, get a job and be bosses themselves.

Through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Tagbilaran City has opened a program for out of school youth of high school and college age, to continue learning, earn new employable skills and in fact, start their own business by becoming entrepreneurs themselves, shared USAID Project 2.0 Cebu hub team leader Loucille Alcala-Dabhi.

Speaking at the recent Kapihan sa PIA, Dabhi said OSYs in Tagbilaran City, aged 15-24 are their program’s target, and to get them through its project path in employment, entrepreneurship and continuing education.

Taking in continuing the disrupted education, Opportunity 2.0 partners with the Department of Education in its Alternative Learning System (ALS) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) for the OSY’s technical and vocational skills training for employment and entrepreneurship.

Set for possible replication to other USAID-assisted sites, Tagbilaran City’s Opportunity 2.0 is, what Dabhi calls as an integration and convergence of all the programs that are available to the OSY.

However, what makes it even better is that Tagbilaran City has institutionalized its Youth Development Alliance (YDA).

YDA is a venue for building collaborative synergy between governments, civil society, business sector, and sectors involved in out of school youth development planning, to achieve globally competitive and sustainable development for the often vulnerable out of school youth.

Already institutionalized in a local ordinance, the Tagbilaran City YDA, assures a seamless collaboration between agencies, and sectors to make sure that after technical and vocational trainings, the learners do not just accept the certificates and are left out by the more formally trained workers.

The goal is; after DEPED formal or ALS education and TESDA’s technical vocational skills training, the YDA arranges for follow through activities that gets the learner employed, or attain capital to be their own bosses as entrepreneurs.

Here, the YDA, which is represented by the government including the Departments of Trade and Industry, Education, Labor and Employment, TESDA, Social Welfare and Development and private sector like local Chambers of Commerce and Industry as well as community leaders and the marginalized youth, to sit down and discuss convergence points to evoke in the graduate employment and entrepreneurship.

Already graduating two batches under the YDA alliance, authorities said their program has slowly produced graduates who are placed under the DTI Mentorship Program, and are given come livelihood kits or capital or TESDA’s employment and entrepreneurship programs.

With the local YDA ordinance which the local leadership prioritized, trained and skills equipped youth here could also get their second chance opportunities in the DTI’s Youth Entrepreneurship Program, to which the USAID has seen considerable success in handling out second chances to the youth and the OSY.

But still trying to get to all the vulnerable OSYs, the USAID Program team leader said they are going down to conduct barangay caravans in the City, if only to get to all those OSYs and assist them in education, employment and entrepreneurship, Dabhi said. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

REOPENING OSY’s SECOND CHANCES. With the USAID, Tagbilaran City implements Opprotunity 2.0 after its benefitting the Cities Development Initiative to focus on the more vulnerable OSYs who may be trained in techvoc work skills but are still second in line after the formally trained, with people still stereotyping the OSYs as second rate, low quality workers. This project attempts to hand-holdthe OSYs to be employed and empowered to be entrepreneurs. (PIABohol)