Subic Bay Freeport–Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) ventured in yet another first-of-its-kind partnership, to support the workplace immersion program for adults with special needs of students from the Vanguard Academy.
Over the weekend, SBMA officials led by Labor department manager Atty. Melvin Varias, together with Le Charmé Suites chief executive officer Josephine Pellicer and Meat Plus Café Group operations manager Eizon Wilmar Sampang, welcomed 11 students of the Vanguard Academy (VA) in a send-off ceremony.
“This pilot immersion program is somehow noble to us because it involves students with special talents. This is unique to us. I hope that this multipartite partnership will be sustained even in the coming years because we believe that we can help prepare them for possible gainful employment in the future,” Varias said.
The Vanguard Academy, a special education institution in Makati City, Metro Manila, has collaborated with the SBMA Labor department to send off 11 young adults with special needs to selected SBMA departments and Freeport locators where they will work as on-the-job trainees (OJTs).
The Academy is also taking it up a notch this year by piloting WIP on a face-to-face platform allowing them to work on-site but with guidance by job coaches from the academy.
One of their goals is for their students to have assisted or fully independent part- or full-time employment in small or large businesses by empowering individuals of all abilities, regardless of age, diagnosis whether typical or special that they may eventually be able to contribute to and be part of the society.
Jean Patricio, Vanguard Academy director for Academics, Employment and Independent Living Skills said that they always use the term “all abilities” to refer to different levels of abilities, whether typically developing, or individuals with autism, individuals with Down’s Syndrome, individuals with intellectual disability, or individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and so on.
SBMA chairman and administrator Rolen Paulino expressed elation about having adults with special needs completing their training here in the Subic Bay Freeport.
“This is great! Aside from the regular individuals we have in our workforce, we have “differently abled” individuals in our workforce. Now, we have trainees with special needs. I look forward to having them as workers sometime soon,” Paulino said.
Paulino also mentioned that in Subic Bay Freeport welcomes workers of all kinds of groups, including members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer community. With that, he reiterated the call to potential investors who want to make it happen in the Philippines to invest in Subic