BALANGA CITY, Bataan – The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Regional Welfare Office (RWO-3) recently facilitated a strategic planning workshop among the Bataan OFW Family Circle (OFC) Provincial Federation held at the Saverde Café in Barangay Gabon, Abucay, Bataan.
Ms. Ma. Lourdes V. Reyes, OWWA RWO-3 Director reported that OWWA’s strategic planning workshop was attended and participated by 34 officers and members of the Bataan OFC Provincial Federation which aims to empower more OFW Family Circles (OFCs) in Central Luzon.
The workshop, according to Reyes, also aims to identify the purpose of the organization and develop a clear, common, and shared vision to which everyone is committed. Moreover, its goal is to build a common understanding of the current state, conditions and challenges as well as to identify the OFC’s core strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats.
Reyes, in her keynote message to the OFC Federation, emphasized the need to identify the organization’s vision-mission statement as well as the strategic plan for its long term direction.
“Through this workshop, we hope to capacitate our OFC Federation members to become self-reliant and to learn to live and work in a more sustainable community. Moreover, we will provide them the necessary training to prepare them as a social group of individuals organized through a common objective and make them active advocacy partners for community, municipal and provincial issues and concerns and its development,” Reyes said.
The RWO3 recognizes the OFCs’ valuable contributions in disseminating the programs and services of OWWA in the far corners of the region. Members of these organizations are given skills trainings and other business opportunities. They likewise undergo seminars such as financial literacy seminar, entrepreneurial development training, values re-orientation, and organizational development training.
Reyes said that at present there are 88 established OFCs in the region. The Family Welfare Officers, together with the LGU-Abucay, Public Employment Service Offices (PESOs) and Migrant Desk Officers, aim to unite more OFW families to effectively communicate the different programs and services of OWWA.
