A total of 50 youths from the CALABARZON Region were employed by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) from April to June 2015 under the Government Internship Program (GIP).

The GIP is a component of the government’s Kabataan 2000 program and is open to 18 to 24 years old male or female youths who are at least high school graduate and whose family’s income is not more than the existing poverty threshold. This provides opportunity for out-of-school and in-school youths hands on experience on working in government agencies and for them to learn skills in the workplace while earning money to help them augment for their school needs.

Participants to this program were engaged for 22 days and were provided a daily stipend of Php300.00.

Of the 50 interns in the DSWD Field Office IV-A, five are out-of-school youths and six are beneficiaries of DSWD’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.

These interns were assigned in different divisions / units in the Field Office as well as the Provincial Operations Offices depending on their skills and academic background. Majority of the work assigned to them were on basic records keeping, encoding and other clerical tasks.

According to intern Rica Ella Anchoriz, her experience with the GIP helped teach her to be responsible with the tasks assigned to her. She added that being a part of this internship program gave her opportunities to be exposed to office jobs while being provided with a stipend, which can help her needs in school.

Marigold Matienzo, another intern, shared that being a part of the DSWD through this internship program made her understand the government, specifically its processes, better.

“Higit sa pagtulong sa pag-aasikaso ng mga papel sa mga taong humihingi ng financial assistance mula sa DSWD, natutunan kong maging matiyaga sa pagtulong sa kapwa. Ang experience na ito ay masasabi kong dahilan kung bakit gusto kong magkaroon ng trabaho na makakatulong din ako sa kapwa ko,” Matienzo shared.# with reports from LMAlvarez & DSBLulab