CeC Story # 6: Family Is Everything
“Please tell your children that the world is changing every day and no one is going to wait for you. When lighter was invented, matches slowly disappeared. When calculator was created, abacus was to fade away. When digital camera was designed, the market of negative film no longer existed.” This was great advice from Jack Ma, the richest person in China and the founder of China’s largest internet company and online shopping website.
“It seems like Ciony read Jack Ma. She was telling me that the world is rapidly changing. In the past she used the typewriter and today it is replaced by the computer. But when the computer came out, she was at a loss. “What is this? I need to keep up with the changing times!”
“To help her husband Gerardo, a carpenter, in paying the household expenses, Ciony volunteered as a health worker in their Barangay. As such, she performs a lot of duties. She weighs children 0-5 years old, gets the blood pressure of health center patients, assists the municipal health workers during immunization mostly for newborn babies, gives flu vaccines for senior citizens and conducts information dissemination for new projects of both the barangay and the municipality. As a volunteer, Ciony works every Tuesday and first Wednesday of the month. She gets a monthly honorarium from the barangay and a quarterly honorarium from both the municipal and the provincial governments. Not bad!
“One day, a 6-wheeler brightly painted truck came to their barangay. It is called Community eCenter (CeC) On Wheels. It was loaded with ten laptop computers, tables and chairs and fully air conditioned. When Ciony looked inside, she was flabbergasted. “Computers!”
“The CeC on Wheels is the mobile version of the Malvar CeC. It offers Free Basic Digital Literacy Training and visits each barangay where they stay for two weeks. Upon learning of the CeC On Wheels’ mission, Ciony became so excited she readily enrolled. For two weeks, she used up the hour allotted to her and learned how to use word processing, spread sheet and multi media.
“In their household, the use of the computer has always been an issue because they have none. Whenever the children aged 16 and 10 need a computer for their school assignments, they have to go to the Internet Café located in Poblacion, a good 2.5 kilometers from their barangay. In explaining to her, the children would say the words google, website, power point, excel, e-mail, all of which she does not understand. It was a source of constant irritation for the family.
““Now that I know how to use the computer, I was enlightened as to what my children were talking about. Now I know what google means, what is a website, excel, email, power point. My children and I now understand each other. There are times when I also help them do their researches. Today, we are speaking the same language and fully understand each other. There is peace and cooperation within the family. For that alone, I think that the CeC On Wheels has been very useful. Salamat po kay Mayor Carlito de la Peña Reyes, sa Sangguniang Bayan, kay Dominic at sa mga iba pang nagtuturo ng computer sa CeC On Wheels!”,
“From experience, I can see that computer knowledge produces different effects on different people. This is the first time I encountered “peace and cooperation within the family” as an effect of computer knowledge to a person. For Ciony, family is everything!
By Linda N. Balbuena, CeC Manager, CeC Malvar