Swaying the general notion that the KASC’s Institute of Teacher Education (ITE) strictly focuses on academics, Dr. Helen Ba-is, adviser for the Home Economics Livelihood Education and Science Club, recently initiated a training program on the development of livelihood skills at the Bulanao Campus.
Intended to expand the options of students on productive opportunities, the training equipped the clients with the basic know-how on soap-making, herbal processing, virgin coconut oil preparation, and improvisation of lab equipment,.
Dr. Helen Ba-is, who also happens to be the Laboratory Custodian of the state college, coordinated the training program with the Cagayan Herbal Processing Plant, which sent its expert Mrs. Carmen Valera, at the same time representing the Philippine Institute of Alternative Medicine. Mrs. Valera labored to transfer her skills to the students, and at the end of the training, large volumes and quantities of the outputs were produced: virgin coconut oil, soaps from kamias, bayabas, carrot, papaya, anti-fungal ointments, cough syrups from lagundi and “dangla.”
“This undertaking can be made as a lucrative income-generating project of the ITE,” Extension Director Maximo Garming said.
Inspired by the positive turnout of the first activity, Dr. Ba-is is now making plans for Phase II of the training, which will then focus on cookery, food preparation and preservation. She will then be expected to utilize her experience and findings from her 2001 research on using ash lye as a food additive to rice cakes – a brainchild that earned her an opportunity to compete at the Regional Symposium annually held by the Highland Agricultural Resources Research and Development Consortium (HARRDEC).
“At present, the only problem we have with regards to the output is on packaging so that they may be sold as usable products,” Researcher Ba-is added.
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