TRAINEES show their skills as Ida observes
For 14 young students, being separated from family and friends for two years is a sacrifice worth making.
“If we just stayed home, we will only be continuing the cycle of poverty that my family and my community are in to. For generations we have been subsisting on farming or fishing, which is barely enough to feed us much more uplift out standard of living,” relates Roel Gocela, a 24-year old who hailed from the town of Pilar in Camotes Island, Cebu.
Gocela has just graduated top of his class, composed of 14 students who took the auto mechanic course funded by Isuzu Motors Limited of Japan in cooperation with the Tacloban, Leyte, branch of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, Plan Philippines, and Isuzu Philippines Corp.
Gocela relates that he was just fortunate to have been selected by Plan Philippines, a Spanish NGO working with underprivileged children living in depressed towns of Occidental Mindoro, Northern Samar, Eastern Samar, Western Samar, Masbate, Cebu and Southern Leyte.
“I was already content working for my father who has a small motorcycle repair shop but as chance would have it, I passed their requirements,” said Gocela who is scheduled to work in Isuzu Davao as an automotive mechanic.
More valuable diploma
According to Isuzu Motors Limited chairman Yoshinori Ida, their Filipino graduates possess a much more valuable diploma as they are now NC IV qualified.
An NC4 is the highest level of certification that is offered in the country and only Isuzu-Tesda Auto Mechanic Training Center in Tacloban, Leyte, currently offers this.
The graduating trainees also got an NC II certification in driving as well as training in car servicing business, customer relations, and planning.
“Immediately after graduation, our students will be assigned to undertake on-the-job training at Isuzu sales and service offices around the Philippines if not in other automotive workshops. We already gave them the skills, it’s now their chance to change their stars,” Ida said.
Heart & Smile project
To date, the P130-million Isuzu-Tesda Auto Mechanic Training Center has already accepted over 120 trainees, and more than 60 have already graduated and have been deployed for work.
Opened in 2008, the training center is a product of the Heart & Smile project of IML to upgrade the skills of young Filipinos in automotive technical training.
The training facility houses a two-story automotive workshop complete with training tools and equipment, 160-bed dormitory for boys and girls, cafeteria, and a multipurpose covered court. The training equipment, including vehicles, costs P39 million.
With training modules provided by Tesda, Isuzu Motors Limited spends about P300,000 for each student, taking care of their board and lodging as well as supplying them with toiletries, textbooks and uniforms.
Technical know-how
“Isuzu provided us technical know-how, even sending Japanese instructors to teach us. To be able to study here is almost unbelievable considering that my family could not afford to support my education,” said third placer Jonnah Mae Mosot, a 21-year-old daughter of a fisherman from Pintuyan, Southern Leyte.
With the education these 14 graduates earned, IPC president Ryoji Yamazaki is confident that very soon, the Philippines will have a competent and world-class auto mechanics that could be the country’s key to achieving world recognition.
“We really want these kids to succeed in life so in each graduation, we brought along our business partners to observe them. We even provide them tool boxes to really help them face the real world,” Yamazaki said.