Survivors now ready to help in rebuilding

One of the houses built by Tesda students who finished their 20-day course in San Francisco, Camotes Island yesterday. (CDN PHOTO/ LITO TECSON)

The Dondoyano brothers, born 11 years apart, were all smiles when they marched together and received their skills training certificates yesterday.

“I am just so glad all the effort finally paid off,” said 39-year-old Eugene at his graduation from a skills training program under the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda).

Eugene and his younger brother, Gabriel, were among 828 scholars from Camotes Island in Cebu who took the Skills Training and Livelihood Assistance (STLA) program, a course aimed at equipping survivors of supertyphoon Yolanda (Haiyan) with skills necessary for recovery.

The Tesda scholars were from the island’s four towns — San Francisco, Tudela, Poro, and Pilar.

The finished courses in masonry, carpentry, plumbing, pipe-fitting, electrical installation, and computer repair.

During the ceremony at the San Francisco Gym, the graduates were awarded certificates of training as well as tool kits handed by Tesda Director Joel Villanueva himself.

Eugene, who had had experience as a carpenter since he was 18, chose to be further trained in carpentry to upgrade his existing skills. He said that he wasn’t able to get into college because their father, also a carpenter, and mother, a housewife, couldn’t afford to send them to send them to school. “I would have wanted to be a civil engineer,” Eugene confessed.

Meanwhile, Gabriel chose masonry because he believes masons are in demand abroad.

Training, which lasted 20 days, started on September 1.

For another 20 days, scholars put their newly acquired skills to use by working together to build houses for those who had lost their homes to Yolanda last year.

Eugene had worked with his younger brother on a 20 square meter house in barangay Mercedes in Poro town.

His younger brother had been in charge of piling the hollow blocks while he did the layout of the structure.

Before the training, the Dondoyanos have long been building houses for those who asked and were willing to pay.

“Nalipay ko kay dili ra ko daghang nakat-onan, nakatabang pa gyud ko sa uban,” Eugene said in Cebuano.
(I am happy because I only did not learn a lot, I can also help others.)

Today, more than 1,800 scholars from Bogo City and Medellin town in northern Cebu today.