SEOUL, 15 June 2014 – The Philippine Embassy hosted on Sunday, 15 June 2014 a half-day seminar organized by the Association of Filipino Educators in Korea (AFEK) for Filipinos working in Korea on entrepreneurial prospects back home and the process of establishing and operating small-scale businesses upon returning to the Philippines.

AFEK President Emely Dicolen-Abagat, who teaches at the Catholic University of Daegu, said the 2nd Colloquium on Financial Strategies for Successful Reintegration “aims to help us, the OFWs in South Korea, as we prepare ourselves towards joining our families back home, when we finish our period of sojourn in this country.”

“All of us, I suppose, are temporary residents of this country and we have no choice later, but to be back to our homeland and be with our loved ones,” she said. “We do not want to join those people who have undergone the “rags-to-riches-to-rags” phenomenon which some of our kababayans (compatriots) who have gone abroad have experienced.”

In inspirational remarks, First Secretary and Consul Roderico Atienza told 60 participants that the objectives of the seminar are consistent with the Embassy’s programs to improve OFWs’ financial literacy on the one hand, and the stated intention of President Benigno S. Aquino III’s to bring OFWs back home, on the other.

The seminar, which invited three resource speakers to make presentations followed by an open forum, featured the following topics: basic investment for OFWs, how to start one’s own food/restaurant business and a distilled water business.

Consul Atienza also formally inducted the new officers of the AFEK, apart from Prof. Abagat. They are Ardelle Malaggay of Gyeongju University as Vice President; Engelbert Pasag of Dankook University as Secretary; Ian Done Ramos of Suwon University as Treasurer and Joeffrey Calimag of University of Ulsan as Public Information Officer.

Representatives from Filipino community organizations such as the EPS Workers Association, Filipino Household Service Workers Association in Korea (FilHoSWAK), Philippine Engineers Association in Korea, Hyehwa Catholic Chuch and Daegu Filipino Community were present during the event.

AFEK was originally conceptualized in 2007 as the Philippine Resource Persons’ Group (PhilRPG) by Filipino instructors and professors working in Korean universities, initially to assist the Embassy in its community service and education-related programs. It was formally constituted in April 2009.