CeC Stories # 3: The Student Became the Teacher

Story # 3. The Student Became the Teacher

Her name is Racel.

Racel is a full time housewife. She and her husband have three children. She takes care of the children, do the laundry, the cooking, everything within the household. “It is a 24 hour job and you do not get paid for everything you do,” says Racel.

When the children were of school age, she began to think about working to help support the household. She wanted to augment her husband’s income, who is an electrician. As a result, she finds time to make leche-tin, a dessert combination of leche flan and gelatin and sold them to friends and neighbors. But it was an on again- off again thing. She wanted some kind of stability, something that would really increase her income on a permanent basis.

One day, she heard about the free training on Basic Digital Literacy being given by the Municipality of Malvar’s Community eCenters. After bringing her children to school, she went to the CeC located at Poblacion to inquire. “It was perfect, ” she said. “I can attend to my household chores, bring my children to school and then go to the CeC to attend the free training.” Racel is an undergraduate of Computer Science during the time when MS DOS was still the operating system.

She was able to finish two different training, one on basic digital literacy and the other on computer hardware and software. She is a blue blooded graduate of two of our CeCs! And life went on.

One day, Mhay, our knowledge worker at Barangay San Fernando came to the office worrying about who will replace her. She is going to Canada to be with her husband.

We both started to look for her replacement. Mhay was fast. She found Racel, an old friend who, she said, will be a good knowledge worker. So Racel trained with us for the position at the main CeC. When Mhay left for Canada June 2015, the Barangay Captain readily appointed Racel as the Knowledge worker.

When the CeC Main office won in the ITU and Telecentre.org contest on training the most number of women, it won 660 thousand pesos worth of ICT equipment. Among them were seven desktop computers. Four of these were given to Barangay San Fernando who provided the space and the salary of the knowledge worker. CeC Barangay San Fernando was born on March 4, 2013.

They have trained more than a hundred since they opened. Their clients were a mix of housewives, out of school youths, and elementary school pupils.

“It was fun and a very stimulating work for me. Of course I now have a steady income, which has been a great help to our family. For this I would like to thank the CeC Malvar for all the trainings and knowledge I acquired and the Barangay Government of Barangay San Fernando for taking me in. ” said Racel.

You are welcome Racel! You definitely gave us a concrete example of how the CeC change people’s lives.

By Linda N. Balbuena, CeC Manager, CeC Malvar