News

Dreams does comes true. UNI PLC Women’s dream materialized on 7th -8th November,2008 when we were able to conduct our dream seminar/workshop on "Sexual Harassment and Occupational ,Safety and Health (OSH) Women related issues".



In this seminar we had 3 participants from Alliance of Filipino Workers (AFW), 9 from National Union Bank Employees (NUBE), 4 from National Broadcast Unions (NABU), 6 from Postal Employees Union of the Philippines (PEUP),2 from Philippine Postal Workers Union (KKKP) and 1 from Philippine Telecom(MKP), a total of 25 participants.



The workshop was officially opened by UNI-PLC General Secretary Mr. Jose Umali Jr. and his presence and support was a great inspiration for us.



Before we started our seminar/workshop we formed different committees such as Program, Social and Report Committees. We explained to them their different roles and after their committee meetings, the program and social committees came up with their own rules and regulations.



The topics in our seminar was about



(1) The basic concepts-definition and forms of Sexual Harassment. Our PLC-Women trainer, Ms.Grace Alzola (NUBE) explained, "What is Sexual Harassment?" and different forms of sexual harassment.



(2) "Preventing Sexual Harassment" by our guest trainer Bro. Rolando Librojo, PLC Program Co-ordinator lead this session going deeper into the issue of prevention.



(3) The Sexual Harassment Law was elaborated by PLC-Women trainer Ms.Marlar Sabado. As introduction Ms. Sabado mentioned the general condition of women in Asia especially in South East Asia and South Asia. Ms.Sabado also said all women workers should be aware of this Sexual Harassment Law and this law will make the women workers feel more safe and secure in their workplace.



(4) To wrap up awareness of sexual harassment. PLC-program co-ordinator Bro. Rigardo Gallardo enlightened the participants with the role of the union in relation with sexual harassment.



(5) "Gender Sensitivity Exercise" and the participants were formed into four groups. This exercise was done to show gender bias exist.



(6) "Team Building' and from it, the participants learned "Unity" is important and to accomplish the work, they had to be united and worked as a team.



(7) Then the participants were given a lecture about Occupational, Safety and Health (OSH) Women -related issues by PLC-program co-ordinator Bro. Librojo. From the lecture the participants learned the key to occupational, safety and health is "Prevention". A clean and healthy working environment is needed.



After a hard day work of brainstorming and group presentations, the participants enjoyed the night by the program prepared by the social committee. it was a bonding party of sisters from different unions and the night was full of fun and laughter. On this beautiful night, the feeling of sisterhood was rooted deeply in our hearts.



And for the finale, how to write an 'Action Plan" was explained by PLC-Women trainer Ms. Marlar Sabado. Ms. Sabado explained "What is an Action Plan?" and gave sample Action Plan and afterwards the participants were divided into three groups to make an Action Plan and group presentation. Groups which were not reporting had to give comments and criticism from good to bad (positive to negative).



At the end of the day, we collected back the evaluation questionnaires and the participants were given "Certificate of Attendance' and the seminar/ workshop ended successfully.



In conclusion, by summarization of the evaluation questionnaires we would like to say the seminar/workshop was a great success and the participants were demanding for more such courses to be held.



For the trainers of this course, we can say we have good training skills, we implement what we have learned from our first Empowerment training course in Kuching earlier this year and we feel good and satisfied with our training skills, but concerning with organizing skills we are not yet 100% perfect, we saw our weakness and from this experience, we learn our mistakes and we can change and improve ourselves and be 100% perfect in the next seminar.



This dream would have never came true if we did not have the support of UNI Apro and our trainers that had instilled the need to take “The next Step!” - Bro. Hashim Lobe, Sister Hadiah Leen and Sister Anjali Bedekar for giving us good training as trainers and because of it, we were full of self confidence and knowledge. We also like to express our thanks to UNI Apro Women Committee for lobbying for more courses for women as a way of “Stepping UP!!” and Therese Bryant of SDA, Australia that had given us additional dept in our work in Equality issues.



By : Marlar H. Sabado



President,UNI-PLC Women's Committee