DAVAO CITY—Tuition and family expenditures topped the priority list of a group of children of migrant workers enrolled in a savings movement initiated by a Mindanao migrant center here.
A scan through the handwritten accounts of 10 children of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), who attended the financial planning in late September, indicated that they stuck to the original intention of the Anak OFW Savings, a piggy-bank concept of saving coins and extra money from the small allowances given by their parents.
Rizalind M. Tumanda, program officer of Anak OFW Project of the Mindanao Migrants Center for Empowering Action Inc. (MMCEAI), said the children planned to increase their savings to an average of P1,000 “to help pay tuition and to help their parents with the family expenses.”
“There was one who planned to buy a USB processor, but this was still related to the requirements of their teachers,” she told the BusinessMirror.
Eighty-six children joined the savings movement of the MMCEAI, patterned after that of a community-based savings movement in the small town of Klagenfurt, Austria, where MMCEAI was invited for a visit on February 8 to March 5, 2012. The movement would encourage a saver to put in their extra coins or extra money from their school allowances to a wooden box with coin slots with designated names of the depositor, The box is fastened to the wall inside the MMCEAI office along MacArthur Highway, and which contains a total of 128 coin slots. Of those who enlisted to become a depositor in 2012, only 61 remained active.
The deposited money would not earn interest, nor would it be spent for other purposes, but would be stored in the box only for safekeeping.
“The Anak OFW Savings is a movement to encourage the consciousness of savings, earned through hard work of their mother or father abroad,” she said. “But it was made clear to the children that the build up of saved money in the deposit boxes should be used only for the needs of their schooling.”
“Usually,withdrawals were used on transportation, meet part of the tuition amount and other expenses related to the school. The saver should indicate what and to where the money withdrawn would be expended.”
The financial planning was meant to reinforce the consciousness of savings, Tumanda said. The parents were also informed of the participation of their children in the savings movement. “Some were happy and had asked the MMCEAI to initiate a similar savings concept for them.”
“One family of three, including the mother, withdrew P600 each from their individual deposit slots to help defray the tuition need of one them, who must pay P1,800 for their tuition last June.”
Savings, though, were still small, from a low of 10 centavos of a 12-year-old girl, who was reported to have stopped putting in coins due to the distance from her home, to as much as P2,500 by a 14-year-old boy.
The highest depositor wrote in his one-sheet financial plan that he must increase his savings to P6,000 to buy a USB processor by December. He smiled when shown of his savings had reached P2,500 when the deposit boxes were opened for accounting last month.
The youngest saver to join was five-month-old baby girl, whose mother asked for a coin slot in her name, while the mother would put in the money.
Her mother just finished her contract work in HongKong.