OWWA established a partnership with Facebook to help OFWs

Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) and social media giant Facebook established a partnership that will seek to educate overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) on how they may build businesses and stay safe online.

The program announced on Thursday aims to improve OFWs’ digital literacy before they leave the country by helping them understand basic online safety, identify scams and fake news, and improve their online empathy.

“When we used to teach digital literacy, it was just about how to use a computer,” said Facebook APAC director of community affairs Clair Deevy.

“Now, digital literacy is about how do you understand all this information coming at you and what are the norms you used to have around family and what was respectful to the other people, and how do you translate this to the online world.”

Filipino workers will also be involved in digital marketing workshops to help them use the social media platform to grow their small businesses.

Informational videos and modules will be made available on Facebook to allow newly-returned or active migrant workers access to these business tips.

“It’s valuable to us in terms of making our OFWs and families better equipped to combat bullying, to identify fake news, and make their own value judgement or otherwise in terms of empathizing or working on any kind of information they receive through Facebook,” OWWA Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac said.

“We know the inherent value of Facebook is not just a communication line but a lifeline, a line of hope and support and assurance from the government, from OWWA, that we are on their side,” he continued.

Deevy said the idea to help improve the digital literacy of OFWs came from similar workshops held by FB and local non-profits with schoolchildren.

“We consistently heard feedback that students are important, but actually this large proportion of workers that were going overseas and were kind of disconnected from their friends and family, saw this as an audience that really needed this training,” she explained.

Deevy later added that after five weeks of training, students would ask, “This is good, I understand it, but how do I tell my parents because I think they’re doing some of the things that they shouldn’t be doing?”

Practical safety

• Safety basics that will be taught in the program, including distinguishing between followers and friends;, keeping information such as bank account numbers private; setting privacy options on posts to control who can see them; and distinguishing between scams and regular posts.
• OFWs will also be trained in critical thinking and empathy in how they use the platform to interact with their family and friends and why they choose to share certain information with them.
• Lastly, the program will aim to teach Filipino migrant workers to spot false news by learning how to identify misleading headlines, fake URLs, and fact check through easy-to-understand infographics and lessons.

Growing businesses online

• OWWA personnel will be trained in order to coach OFWs on how they may use Facebook and even Instagram to promote and conduct their businesses.
• Among the topics include how to set up and manage a Facebook page for businesses, learn what time most customers visit the page, the page’s demographics, and how to take photos of a product to induce sales.
• An initial target of 1,500 OFWs trained pre-departure has been set for the project’s launch in July until the end of the year. Facebook and OWWA will determine the mapping of the trainees after their trial run ends.

Facebook  is already working with an NGO to provide OFWs in Singapore similar training and will run a pilot program in the Philippines soon.

This article is an excerpt from: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/pinoyabroad/news/656077/owwa-facebook-program-aims-to-help-ofws-use-social-media-safely-and-for-business/story/