PROJECT ANGEL TREE. Personnel from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE-7) in Central Visayas and the Mandaue City government, along with volunteers from the private sector, distribute bags with school supplies, food and toys to around 900 children during the "Project Angel Tree" event in Mandaue City on Monday (Nov. 25, 2019). DOLE-7 Tri-City Field Office chief Emmanuel Ferrer said the program aims to improve the economic and social conditions of children and their families and increase the number of allies and advocates of child labor prevention and elimination. (PNA photo by Fe Marie Dumaboc)
MANDAUE CITY, Cebu – The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE-7) in Central Visayas on Monday gathered around 900 children for a community-based intervention program that aims to prevent them from becoming child laborers in Metro Cebu.
Emmanuel Ferrer, chief of DOLE-7's Tri-City Field Office, said through "Project Angel Tree", they were able to educate the children of their rights against child labor.
He also said the agency partnered with local government units and the private sector in rolling out the project as a component of the DOLE Child Labor Prevention and Elimination Program.
Under "Project Angel Tree", the agency provides an array of social services that range from food, clothing, educational assistance or school supplies, and even work and training opportunities made available by sponsors or benefactors called “angels” to child laborers and their families.
The program, he said, aims to improve the economic and social conditions of children and their families and increase the number of allies and advocates of child labor prevention and elimination.
“We would like to emphasize that the children we are catering now are those at risk (of being indulged into child labor). This is part of the prevention. We give food, educational supplies, some toys, among others,” Ferrer told the Philippine News Agency (PNA).
He said the 900 children the agency was able to gather was the outcome of the four-month profiling of those “children at-risk to become victims of child labor.”
In profiling the children, DOLE-7 coordinated with the Mandaue City government and its 27 barangays.
The beneficiaries' ages range from 9 to 15 years old and many of them sell bottled water on the streets.
“They just work to augment the daily needs of their family... That is why we are here to prevent them from becoming victims of child labor. They do (labor) after class. Instead of doing their assignments, they sell bottled water and others,” Ferrer said.
DOLE-7 tied up with other partners such as the city government, which contributed whatever it could to the program.
The children received food and school supplies while their parents were also invited to an advocacy talk on programs of the city government and the DOLE with respect to efforts stopping child labor.
During the three-hour program, parents were encouraged to continue sending their children to school, noting the government policy on free education as well as the scholarship program of the city government offered to poor but deserving students.
Ferrer said DOLE is aiming to eliminate or prevent child labor across the country.
He claimed that DOLE-7’s "Project Angel Tree" has helped close to 1,000 kids who were eliminated from the list of children-at-risk to child labor.
The program was also in observance of Children’s Month which is celebrated every November. (PNA)
