Grad tells fellow PWDs: ‘Show that you can do it’

Padin, a hunchback girl from Carcar says joining the DSWD’s vocational program is a big help to her. (contributed Photo)

FORTY-SEVEN persons with disabilities (PWDs) recently graduated from the one-year courses at the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Area Vocational Rehabilitation Center (AVRC) in barangay Labangon, Cebu City.

Aside from the 47 PWDs, 18 licensed massage therapists and 29 Alternative Learning System (ALS) students also graduated in elementary and high school.

“Show that you can do it, we should not be discouraged. Now, we are encouraging our sectors to give value and attention that is why we have different programs for the PWDs,” DSWD Regional Director Mercedita Jabagat said in mixed Visayan and English during the graduation ceremony.

For Jesiely Padin, a 20-year-old hunchback from Carcar City and one of the graduates, said that joining the DSWD’s vocational program is a big help.

“I enrolled in AVRC and took up Computer Technology because it’s boring to stay at home and it’s not good to grow old  learning nothing at all,” she said in Cebuano.

“Do not lose hope because if we strive hard, we will really succeed especially now that the DSWD provides program for us (PWDs),” she added.

Before, she was a Business Administration student of Sibonga Community College, but she stopped going to school due to financial problem.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development’s AVRC II offers vocational courses to PWDs, such as therapeutic massage, computer technology, basic cosmetology, consumer electronics, electric motor repair, commercial arts and crafts, commercial cooking, housekeeping, and dress and apparel technology.