ILOILO City – More than 100 overseas Filipino workers (OFW) and their family members learned financial and family management in a training conducted by the Public Employment Service Office (PESO) of the provincial government.
Most of the participants in Thursday’s event were families of returning domestic workers who were prone to financial mismanagement, said Jayrel Encontro, PESO-Iloilo labor and employment officer.
“Aside from financial literacy, our OFWs, as well as their families, were taught how to cope with being apart,” Encontro said.
The training, conducted at the Casa Real de Iloilo, was attended by OFWs and PESO managers from Oton, Tigbauan, Miagao, Pavia, Cabatuan, Maasin, Pototan, Leganes, Tubungan, Passi City, and Duenas.
Encontro said these towns had already established OFW organizations like the migrants’ desks. The migrants’ desks assist OFWs in their financial and family management.
They also orient them on the positive and negative impacts of migration, Encontro added.
After the training, a series of programs, including reintegration counseling, investment opportunity forum, and OFW families’ skills training, will be conducted. Jose Felino Resol Jr., area development coordinator of nongovernment organization Atikha, said household mismanagement of OFW families sometimes end up in failed marriages and unhealthy relationships with children. “Distance and financial mismanagement often becomes the root of family misunderstandings.
We teach the families of OFWs where to invest and how to save their remittances, among others,” he added.
Atikha, along with the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration and UN Women Fund for Gender Equality, partnered with PESO-Iloilo in conducting the family and income management training. (PNA/PN)