Helping Filipino workers help themselves

Helping Filipino workers help themselves

By OFW GUARDIAN
Thursday, 20 January 2005

TOKYO: Rain or shine, Mercy, a 29-year-old Filipino domestic worker in Tokyo, attends free weekly computer classes for migrant workers. This program, she says, will soon help her find a better job ? paving the way for a more secure future.

”It’s hard to juggle work and the computer classes,” says the young woman who left her daughter in the Philippines two years ago when she came to Japan.

”But I’m determined to carry on and so grateful for the opportunity to lead a better life someday,” she told Inter Press Service on the eve of International Migrants Day, Dec. 18.

Last Sunday was the last day of her classes before the Christmas and New Year break. Mercy, along with a large group of Filipinos gathered at a church in Meguro, central Tokyo, to celebrate a “special” Christmas before the actual Dec. 25 festivities. But beyond that, they also used the occasion to raise funds for a literacy project in rural Philippines that is supported by migrant workers in Japan.

Mercy, dressed fashionably in tight jeans and sporting a jaunty short haircut, was in charge of the extremely popular bingo games. Migrant workers pay 500 yen (about 50 US cents) for each card, and the winners receive small gifts. The major portion of the earnings that day goes to the charity project.

Unique training program
”Kaya naman kasi ng Pinoy lang” Filipinos Can Do It – ‘Pinoy’ is the colloquial term for ‘Filipino’) is the slogan of a unique migrants training project run in Tokyo and its cousin cities : Yokohama and Chiba. Around since 1998, it was founded by Antonina Binsol, a Filipino working at a Japanese bank.

”The program was undertaken to help migrants educate themselves and also for them to start networking. This gives them the social security necessary to survive in a foreign country and this has worked out very well,” explains Binsol.

Mercy is one of tens of thousands of young Filipinos, together with other Asian men and women, who arrive in Japan each year trying to seek their fortune amidst rosy preconceived ideas about making quick money and returning home rich.

They are a valuable source of cheap labor for Japanese construction or manufacturing companies that stay globally competitive by relying on people who can work long hours for low wages. According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the Philippine government agency in charge of the deployment of contract labor, there were 240,548 Filipinos in Japan as of 2001. More than a hundred thousand of them are documented workers, 65,647 are married to Japanese nationals and became permanent residents, while 36,379 workers, mostly entertainers, are undocumented.

Filipino and other Asian women are usually employed as domestic workers or in the entertainment industry. The Japanese government bars them from applying for legal visas, so these workers have little protection when forced into prostitution or denied wages. Binsol says the plight of such workers was the reason why she decided to start a training project. By having a place to study, migrants exchange information, share ideas and learn to support each other and also to empower themselves to negotiate for their rights, she says.

The training program also helps prevent foreign workers from falling into crime or being harassed by thugs because they now have a place where they can reach out for help.

?The opportunity to start a training project was possible because foreign workers remit a lot of money back home. I realized there must be program to let them help themselves, even after they return to the Philippines,? she said.

Tulong Pinoy Movement
Binsol’s ‘Tulong Pinoy’ (Help Pinoy) Movement started various programs to support migrants in Japan, including a mud crab farm in the Philippines.

Bisnol says the farm, started a year ago using the remittances of migrants in Japan, now sells the crabs, enabling the workers to continue to have a steady income after they return home.

In Japan, apart from computer classes, migrants are also enrolled to study Japanese - all offered free. More than 20 Filipinos, including an Indian woman who is employed as a domestic helper, attend the classes.

Sakura Suganuma, the Japanese teacher, says each course has 10 sessions and is well attended. “I teach them conversation and later reading and writing.. The aim is to help workers to communicate better with the Japanese community, which helps foster closer ties and smooth acceptance of foreigners here,” she explains.

Indeed, Alberto, who arrived in Japan from Mindanao last year, says he is studying Japanese because he would like to start his own business here. “If the planned agreement with Japan to accept Filipino care workers here is accepted, then I get involved in this business of recruiting people to work here,” he explain to IPS.

Japan, a closed labor market
Japan, officially a closed labor market, told the Philippine government in early December that nurses and caregivers from the country would be allowed to enter after documentary requirements have been ironed out.

For now, though, Elsie, whose two children are in the Philippines, says the hardest part is to keep up the attendance at classes. “Despite the classes being held only on Sundays, I have to skip many times because of jobs that come my way. My main reason for staying here is to make money,” she explains.

But she acknowledges the program is very important to migrant workers because they give hope for the future.

”When we are in a foreign country alone and have to work hard, the only way to keep going is to look ahead. This training program gives us that and we are learning to help ourselves do better in the future,” adds Elsie.
OFW Journalism Consortium, Inc.

Last Updated ( Friday, 21 January 2005 )