Local One Stop-Shop Migration Resource Centers

1. 1.      Holistic mandate and integrated services

The Migrant Resource Centers have a holistic mandate that includes pre-departure training, general migration information, social services for migrants and family members staying behind, assistance to the reintegration of migrants and increasing the development impact of migration and migrants’ contributions. More in detail, the mandate includes:

• Pre-departure migration orientation and community-based safe migration information, orientation and advocacy campaign, including anti-trafficking information.
• Social services – crisis intervention and addressing family issues, including psycho-social issues of ‘children left behind’. Another focus of the activities lies on furthering the economic empowerment of women, who are staying behind.
• Organizing of Overseas Filipino Workers and their families, in partnership with Overseas Workers Welfare Association (OWWA). An OWWA helpdesk within the Migration Resource Center provides access to all services by OWWA. This includes special loan programmes and (mentoring and financial) reintegration assistance, and incentives to create OFWs family circles and OFW associations. These associations then
• Training and offering of assistance for financial literacy (address family issues, link with investments , training), livelihood strategies, skills training and entrepreneurship . Inter alia, the Centers are supposed to write knowledge material on how to set up small business and what are the concrete opportunities for becoming an entrepreneur. Cooperatives provide the concrete entrepreneurship training. Other training modules are offered by competent government agencies or NGOs. While Athika provides financial literacy training (or Center staff has been qualified as trainers), the Philippines' Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) in involved in professional skills and livelihood training, and the provincial labour department officers are qualified trainers to give ILO’s entrepreneurship training.
• Linking diaspora philanthropy with sustainable development projects for migrants and their communities.
• Integrating migration in local development plan.

Not all entities are represented and all services offered every day. For example, the OWWA helpdesk is manned every other week for a day. While this might not be ideal, many stakeholders find that this is manageable and the concerned persons can easily adapt to these timings.

1. Creation of meaning institutions and partnerships: Centers, Councils, OFW Associations,

The Migration Resource Centers themselves are physical structures with training and mentoring facilities. In addition, the Centers have a Migration and Development Council (M&D Council) that acts as a clearing and steering house. The M&D Council includes representative from the local government, national agencies operating in the province/municipality, private sector, NGOs and Overseas Filipino Workers associations. In the Centers that were established with support of the Youth Employment and Migration (YEM) component of the MDG-F, there is also a youth representative in the council. The members elect a coordinator who acts as the chairperson of the council. Formal memoranda of agreements (MoAs) spell out the role of the different partners.

The Migration Resource Centers establish priority areas for local economic development that are most suitable for diasporic or migrant investment. In the Center that was visited by the research team in the Agusan del Sur province, in line with the provincial development plan, rubber tree farming, as well as the processing of rubber had been identified as key priorities. In collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, the Council was in the process of exploring possibilities for directing migration-related development activities toward the production of vegetables.

The Centers also actively encourage overseas Filipino workers and their families to create OFWs family circles and OFW associations. Through these associations, OFWs and their families are better represented in the M&D Council’s meetings and it is more feasible to include their voices into the decision making processes. This can be regarded as a relevant process outcome, but also as a way to give voice to citizens and to strengthen good and inclusive local governance.