OWWA Press Release: OWWA opens Halfway Home for OFWs

OWWA opens Halfway Home for OFWs.
April 18, 2005

Overseas Workers Welfare Administration chief Marianito D. Roque today will lead OWWA and Department of Labor & Employment officials, with Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas as guest, in opening the doors to overseas Filipino workers of the OWWA's OFW Halfway Home, a lodging facility for distressed OFWs.

The OFW Halfway Home, located at the second floor of the OWWA Building on F.B. Harrison Street in Pasay City, is intended for transient OFWs who have no place to stay in Manila.

The facility can accommodate 40 distressed OFWs, whom OWWA will provide with beddings, meals, and personal hygiene kits during their temporary stay. It also has recreational facilities for table games, televiewing, and group interaction.

Transient OFWs from the Visayas and Mindanao may stay for a week at the Halfway Home, while those from Luzon may stay for three days.

The OWWA is assigning "houseparents" who will be on duty at the facility 24 hours a day, seven days a week to supervise activities and facilitate the delivery of services such as providing transients with local transport and/or medical needs.

"This Halfway Home may be modest but it's safe and homey," Administrator Roque said.

"By making it available for free to distressed OFWs here at the OWWA premises, we would like them to feel OWWA's warmth as well as its genuine concern to their welfare, he added.