Before, teachers in the sleepy town of Sogod had to travel for two hours (one way!) just to access the Internet in Cebu City. “I always go to Cebu City to research on things I need for teaching,” relates Vivien Coming, a single mother and a pre-school teacher in her mid 20s.
On the Internet, Vivien says that it is easy to find teaching aids, educational games, and stories that she is later able to share with her co-teachers and students. So, the long road trip was a sacrifice that she willingly endured because she saw the value of the Internet to her line of work as an educator.
Still, when she learned that a community e-Center had been set up in Sogod, she thought that it was a “gift from Heaven.”
“We are very happy to have a community e-Center here in Sogod. It makes research so much easier, and I no longer have to incur huge travel costs,” Vivien said.
Teachers like Vivien are not the only ones to benefit from the educational opportunities offered
by the e-Center.
Divina Santillan, who co-manages the e-Center with her husband Reynold, sees how people always look forward to the free basic computer and internet literacy program being conducted at the e-Center by her husband. “We also conduct free training programs on Excel, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint for those who want to learn these basic computer programs. Trainees always express satisfaction because they learned a lot of things,” she says.
The free training that these two former out-of-school-youth-turned-community-mentors provide does not go unrewarded. The more they train, the more future customers they have, and indeed, the Center is flourishing due in part to the increasing number of high school, elementary and college students, teachers, cooperative members and townsfolk who have started using the facilities.
The community e-Center in Sogod, Cebu, is one of the beneficiaries of the Last Mile Initiative Program of the USAID-funded EMERGE project. Working with World Corps, a local nonprofit organization that led the effort to establish what is fast becoming the community’s center of learning; the LMIP program provided computers and upgraded existing units of the Center. LMIP also facilitated the Center’s new broadband connection that makes e-learning more enjoyable and efficient, and which has now enabled the Center to explore new revenue-generating applications like internet telephony.