TESDA grad bakes, trains

to make a living on bread

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, August 14, (PIA)—As a child, she twiddled with cacao beans to peel the roast and help her mother prepare tableja.

It started as a child’s play, one she didn’t know would harden her grip and be her ace in the sleeves now.

Neither did she know that the grip that peeled the roasted beans, the shake that separated the chaff, the laborious grinding and the tempering of the bean butter overnight would prepare her ably today.

For April Baja Cadeliña, 28 years old lady of Canjulao, Jagna, life was never easy. She, like her siblings, had a childhood steeped in play that masked work. That play toughened them in life and the future she aspires.

Born youngest in a family of nine, April’s summers were unlike those of her age then. Any spare time for play, she thinks of ways to help their income, like most of her siblings.

When she turned Grade 2, life even turned worse.

Her father Alfeo stopped working as pier porter, and her mother Apolonia, to make both ends meet, has to double up in her tableja manufacturing, one she learned also from her childhood.

From there, child’s play slowly morphed into a chore, which toughened into hard-work months later.

Finishing her schooling at Canjulao Elementary School and at Central Visayan Institute in Jagna, April finished Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education, but not without going through it, as working student. Her siblings also had to go the same hard way. 

For her and her siblings, tableja was not as profitable then, they all have to find ways to get past college.

Being a teacher had so much to do with April’s life preparations. She learned the trade like anybody, but she was also as eager to learn more.

While awaiting to take the teachers’ board, April decided to take a regular course on Bread and Pastry Production, a course offered at the local training center of the Technical Education And Skills Development Authority (TESDA) in her hometowns in Jagna.

Eighteen days later, April realized kneading dough was not as challenging as twiddling beans, one her classmates found amazing.

Honed and whetted with the hard toils of tableja making, she did not know she has already been tempered by the patience of a since young, so she was guiding her classmates in every cooking demo. She did finish the course, among the top of the 25 graduates. She was on a different kind of high.

And then she passed in the teachers’ board.

There, her life began its upward swing.

She shared she had her glorious times as substitute teacher. But all along, she slowly realized, she could be more inclined to baking cakes, where she found the money she needed to help her parents.

And while filing her application as a regular teacher, April has to wait some more. Her waiting however turned out to be productive.

Finding a scholarship slot at TESDA, she took the Trainors Methodology Course Certification I, one she completed, being a teacher.

Then, she accepted as a job order worker at TESDA, dishing out Bread and Pastry Production as a scholarship and training for work course opens.         

At times too, when TESDA training are requested to the barangays, April  gets more chances of traveling, meeting people and rubbing elbows with the town’s underprivileged.

Now a certified TESDA trainor, April thinks she has a much enjoyable lie then getting confined in the walls of a classroom.

“I get to places, I travel and I love technical vocational work which is more interactive. In schools, you would know if your students understood the lesson until after the test. In the training, you will immediately see if they got the instructions,” Cadelina compared.

At the DepED, it is more of spoon-feeding, TESDA is more interactive and output based, and I like it here, she confessed.

What is even more exciting is when she trains for the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act (UAQTEA) where she kneads dough with the less fortunate high school graduates or college under graduates and Pantawid beneficiaries.

I love it here and I man happy with what I do, helping people find jobs that can feed their families, she said.

Along with Electrical Installation and House Wiring, UAQTEA also offers Bread and Pastry Production.

Primed by times to go for the hard tests, April has this advice to others: Always try the tough tasks, go learn the hard techniques, and love your work as always.

“I never realized until recently how hard it is to make a P5 bread,” she shared as she added she is more of into cinnamon roll, butter cake and moist chocolate cake as her specialty.

On top of her prime now, Cadeliña confessed, she got here and it was not easy.

Getting overly confident once, she led a group to a baking assessment.

“Kining feeling nimo, kamao na  ka, pero kuwang pa diay,” she recalled. “I had to redo everything and we were able to present just in time, she said.

Now contracted as a trainer, Cadelina said if she would have her word, she’d rather be with TESDA than teach.

I like it here, and I am still giving myself another year to apply for a regular TESDA position, before I will decide to teach if I can not get in.

Already at a hug advantage with a Trainors Methodology Course Certificate, Cadelina would be overly qualified if she decides to make it to DepED.

Even TESDA Bohol Grace Corazon Castillo admitted they had problems with trainers as DepED has been offering regular positions, even with those without Education units.

I have stayed here with TESDA, she added, knowing she has to pay back what she earned in the past years with them.

Now, I bought to ovens at home, refrigerator and appliances, something that I only dreamt of then.

I have training, and in between, I bake cakes and bread, and the income is good.

For April, while baking bread and cakes feed the body, stretching long to help the poor is to her, feeding a family and helping them get up with government’s help. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

April Baja Cadeliña, 28 finished TESDA course on Bread and pastry Production and followed it up with Trainors Methodology Course, where she is certified. Now, she contracts with TESDA’s bread and Pastry training, an engagement she finds more appealing than teaching. TESDA Bohol Grace Corazon Castillo admits DepED has been on the lookout for TESDA trainors for the Senior High School, but Cadelina said, she likes it at TESDA. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

TESDA BOHOL PD Grace Corazon Castillo and Carlito Quintano talked about TESDA’s scholarship offers for Boholanos as they advertise the free TECHVOC care of the new law which is the government’s counterpart for the Free College Tuition Act. TESDA also shows its success story with a teacher bread and pastry graduate now among TESDA trainors, April Cadelina. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)