DSWD teaching Boracay workers new livelihood skills

Boracay Island: Last day to closure. PHOTO/Lyn Rillon, PDI

BORACAY ISLAND, Aklan — The Department of Social Welfare and Development on Thursday stressed the importance of providing new livelihood programs to workers on this island to help them cope with the shutdown.

On the first day of Boracay shutdown, DSWD OIC Undersecretary Emmanuel Leyco said they would assist some 19,000 registered and 17,000 informal workers.

“We are preparing to help both groups of workers. We are also gearing up our livelihood programs to adjust to the new environment where tourism is not going to be around for the next six months,” Leyco said.

He said the department was teaching Boracay workers new skills that can be applied in other industries.

“The challenge to DSWD sustainable livelihood program specialists is to device a livelihood program that will not necessarily anchor its activities on tourism here in Boracay,” he said.

According to him, some of the crafts made to be sold on Boracay Island could be sold in other tourist destinations so finding a new market was one of the programs.

The DSWD was exploring business process outsourcing industry as an option for hospitality industry employees of Boracay.

“We’d like to explore perhaps BPOs. This is a hotel industry and our workers here are well-equipped to support the hotel industry around the world.”

The DSWD was proposing a P2-billion budget for cash and livelihood assistance to island workers who will be out of work for six months.

The department was also handing out travel allowances to those who would like to leave Boracay for their hometowns.

Meanwhile, Malay Mayor Ciceron Cawaling on Wednesday said he was eyeing a dole out of one week to one month cash assistance for some 7000 families living in Boracay.

It could be a P5,000 to P10,000 calamity assistance fund, he said.

Cawaling said this would complement the cash for work program of DSWD and the Department of Labor and Employment.