Youths learn job-ready skills in church center

Youths with idle time on their hands can learn bartending, computer design or other skills that can help them land a job.

The three-month training for a technical vocation course is on its seventh year under the  YouthLinks Training and Assessment Center Inc. run by the Commission on Youth (COY) of the Cebu Archdiocese.

In the past six years, about 1,700 persons have availed of the program, mostly out-of-school youths.

About half of them later found jobs and were able to help their families, said Msgr. Arturo Navales, chairman of COY.

“It has contributed in such a way that young people are provided with skills to make them realize their dignity,” he said.

The program’s 18th batch will start this week.  Enrolees are still being accepted this week.  Payment for a course range from P300 to P1,500.

The courses include bartending, housekeeping, food and beverage servicing and bread and pastry production (baking).

Computer courses offer AutoCAD, Adobe Photoshop, Computer Hardware Servicing, Programming, and Basic Computer Literacy.

“What differentiates us from other training centers is our intention to provide them with catechetical instruction,” said Navales.

Pamphlets with the photo of Blessed Pedro Calungsod, biography and prayers to the young martyr are placed near the computers.

This is one way students get to know about Calungsod, a teenage mission helper who was killed in Guam in 1672 and was named the patron of youths in the Cebu Archdiocese.   Calungsod will  be canonized on Oct. 21 in Rome.

Graduates are given certificates from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) and Certificates of Distinctions for those who showed excellence and diligence during the training.

The computer training center is in the compound of the Our Lady of Scared Heart Parish (Capitol parish) along Escario Street in Cebu City.

Other classes will be held at the Archdiocesan Youth Center beside the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral.  The baking course will be held in the nearby “Kusina ni Santa Marta.”

This is a “work of charity” and a way to empower the youth, said Navales.

The training program started six years ago with 20 computer units donated by a US company. A supporter of COY had told Navales about the firm. The priest wrote to Jerry Tice of Space Loral Systems, and with the help of other donors to cover freight costs, the computers arrived in April 2006.

Today, the  center has 60 computers.

For instructors, the commission first worked with the Cebu city government’s Department of Manpower Development and Placement.

Later on volunteers took over as YouthLinks instructors after taking the sub-professional licensure exam administered by Tesda.

Cardinal Vidal blessed and opened the Archdiocesan YouthLinks Center in  Escario Street  on July 24, 2006.

The separate two-story Archdiocesan Youth Center near the Cathedral was opened last year. Those interested to sign up or support the trainings can call l 520-5234 or 254-6065.  /Reporter Ador Vincent S. Mayol