Sikhay Sa Paggawa: "I've Been Blessed," Says Former Street Dweller

Roy Reyes, a former street dweller, went from having zero skills to being
multiple-skilled. He passed TESDA assessment in steel works,
hydraulic backhoe operation, and carpentry .

Adopted Child. Roy Reyes, a man in his early forties, still breaks into tears when he remembers his past. At 12, he learned that he was an adopted child. Shocked and unable to accept the fact, he ran away from home in Cebu and found his way to Bohol, where he did hard labor on a sugarcane plantation. By the time he turned 20 he had ended up in Manila where he joined an informal community of street dwellers and took to crime. He moved from snatching handbags and necklaces, to picking pockets, to robbing jeepney passengers.

The police threw him into jail twice, but he went right back to crime when released. "I didn't want to steal, but it was something I had to do to survive," he says.

In October 2010 he had just been released from prison a third time and was planning another jeepney holdup when instead, he joined a feeding session led by the Kaibigan Ministry of the Center for Community Transformation (CCT) Group of Ministries. The food was being distributed by a young man, Frankie Libre, who said he also used to live on the street and was also frequently jailed for theft but that his life had been turned around by God.

That was the beginning of Roy's attendance in a series of feeding sessions and Bible studies. He learned of a Bible verse where Jesus Christ said, "Come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." It was a verse that seemed to have been written exactly for him. "I was tired of living on the streets, tired of committing crime. In fact, I sometimes hoped I would get shot and killed in one of those robberies which would mean the end of all my hardship." But before that could happen, he turned his life over completely to God.

From Zero Skills to NC2 Holder. Shortly afterward, Roy gladly accepted an invitation to join a team of workers who would construct buildings at the Tagaytay Retreat and Training Center. He also grabbed a chance to learn carpentry work, how to be a steel man, and how to operate a hydraulic backhoe through Sikhay sa Paggawa (SIPAG), a project being overseen by CCT and run in partnership with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) with funding from the Alagad Party List. "Dati po wala akong kaalam-alam. Ngayon po NC2 na ako," he says with gratitude. ("I used to have no skills at all, but now I have a national certificate 2." With these skills and with God's blessings Roy knows he will be able to give his children a better life than he had.

"Kaya po ako naiiyak dahil ayoko na sana maalaala ang pinagdaanan ko. Pero naiiyak din po ako dahil may pag-asa na po ako," he says. "Napakabuti po ng Diyos sa akin. Pinag-pala po ako." ("I am in tears because I no longer wish to remember my past. But I am also in tears because of the hope I have been given. God is so good to me. I've been blessed.")

Photos below show SIPAG workers and members of the Kaibigang Maaasahan Multi-purpose Cooperative building the Visions of Hope Christian School in Puypuy, Bay, Laguna. Most of them are holders of TESDA certificates.