A government agency has recently given several distressed and displaced Overseas Filipino Workers with skills training in the baking business to start anew.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) National Reintegration Center for OFWs (NRCO) Davao Region equipped 15 undocumented and distressed OFWs with the fundamentals of baking and cake decorating recently at DOLE XI Activity Hall.

Aside from cake production, the OFWs were also trained in the pricing scheme, selling strategies, and business management.

Each of them was also given with baking equipment such as oven, mixer, rolling pins and some ingredients among others.

Displaced from Malaysia, 55-year-old Elizabeth Po, a resident of Riverside, Calinan, Davao said she was thankful of the skills training.

“It is a great opportunity for me because I will be able to continuously support the needs my family by putting up a business,” she said.

Po experienced a lot of physical abuse from her employers and she was only able to escape by getting out from the window and rappelling down from the building.

Noraina dela Cruz, 31, from Darong, Sta. Cruz who was a household service worker repatriated from Jeddah said she was very fortunate to avail the training.

“I am really thankful for this training because it gave me hope to start again. I will make this business grow,” she said.

Dela Cruz decided to return to the country after going through maltreatments and being overworked in the hands of her employers.

Rea B. Sa-an, Reintegration Officer of NRCO XI said it is the agency’s earnest desire to see that OFWs and their families achieve financial freedom and independence by providing them with essential knowledge and alternatives in their pursuit to be reintegrated in the society.

“Through this training, OFW returnees can now use their newly acquired knowledge to start their own livelihood and investments,” she said.

“It is the NRCO’s mission to enable OFWs and their families to work and live with entrepreneurial mindset, primarily through the creation of awareness on the value of saving, and empowering them to plan for investment, business, or local employment upon their return, while responding to the reintegration needs of displaced OFWs and OFWs in distressful situations,” she said. (DOLE-NRCO XI)