“Bigyan nyo kami ng pagkakataon na gabayan namin kayo para maging OFW, Overseas Filipino Winner.”
Gabriel John Rimando, Founder
Introduction
The Filipino institute is a social enterprise founded by the very popular and renowned Filipino photographer, Gabriel John Rimando. It is an institute focused on empowering Filipino workers abroad by educating them and exposing them to opportunities overseas which will make things easier for them to survive overseas. Described as ‘A chain of schools established by a Filipino for empowering Filipinos”, the institute was founded in November 2015 in Dubai, UAE, and in less than three years has gone on to graduate about fifty thousand Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and establish branches in countries like Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. The sweeping success experienced by the institute in such a short frame of time is a testimony to the good job they have done in the last three years. It is well known that many new immigrants to a new country find it very difficult to adapt and begin to make ends meet. Most times, they usually need guidance from more experienced people who have been in the place much longer. These were at the heart of the motive of the founder, Gabriel John Rimando when he founded this institute. He wanted to establish an institute which will bring together, his fellow kinsmen together and empower them through the means of social entrepreneurship. This is exactly what the Filipino Institute has been doing. Thousands of Filipinos are being empowered each year and graduated from the institute and thereafter, they go on to make a head start from the empowerment they have made in the institution. The institution is founded on the principle of societal entrepreneurship. That is, apart from the basic empowerment and education it affords its students, it also establishes a network of connections among Filipinos: it brings people together, who meet themselves and forge business partnership and friendships which benefit them on a long run. This is one of the fundamentals of surviving in life. A great man once said, ‘Humans are caught in an inescapable network of community.’ This is to say that no man can make it all alone. What the Filipino institute sought out to be is a network which connects all Filipinos and enables them to help each other and by so doing, provide education and a network in a much easier, and what’s more?—an affordable cost.