The opportunity for Prince August L. Conde to be part of the GIP came at the most insecure time. It was during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the fear and uncertainty of the times, he willingly performed his tasks as a frontliner in government service.

As a GIP, he was assigned in Zamboanga del Norte Field office as an encoder under the Child Labor and Prevention Program (CLPEP).

“My task includes encoding the profile of child laborers identified by the enumerators and managing the CLPEP database,” he said.

He explained further that sanitizing data is the most challenging task he performed and yet the most important one. He weeds out the data from multiple entries, duplicity and other flaws, making sure that it is correct and reliable.

There are two important things he learned from his GIP experience that he would like to share to the interns and for those who want to avail of the program. It is initiative and the sense of urgency.

“As interns we should not wait for tasks to be given to us, we must be proactive instead. If we see opportunities to help or assist our fellow workers and clients, we grab that opportunity, we initiate.”

He also added that when given tasks to deliver, we must be conscious to finish it as soon as possible. There should be a sense of urgency. There was a time that he even brought work to his house due to ECQ restrictions in order to finish it.

These very important lessons led to where he is now. After his employment as GIP, he was promoted as TUPAD Coordinator, and then hired as Teacher II in the Department of Education.

No words can express his gratitude towards DOLE for the opportunity and experiences he had with them. Aside from the opportunity to develop professionally it also gave him the opportunity to develop individually. /With reports from DOLE ZDNFO