At just the point when her college years mattered most, Joevel Yvette Asis watched her family’s finances waver. Her mother, Jovelyn Asis, had been working abroad, but in 2024 came home earlier than anyone planned after learning that the job waiting for her overseas was not the one written into her employment contract. The sudden loss of that income threatened to derail her daughter’s studies.
Rather than step away from school, Joevel applied for the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration’s Education for Development Scholarship Program (EDSP). That application reshaped her path. She went on to finish a Bachelor of Science in Social Work at the City of Malabon University with the highest academic distinction, graduating Summa Cum Laude.
What the grant covered in tuition mattered, but she describes its deeper value as steadiness. “My scholarship in OWWA helped me beyond financial means. It gave me peace. I was able to focus on my studies and give my full potential to perform and fulfill my duties as a student because I worried less about the days ahead of me,” she said. Without the weight of wondering how each semester would be paid for, she could pour herself into her coursework.
Joevel counts the honor as a shared one. She credits her mother’s years of working far from home, and her stepfather, who helped carry the family through, for giving her room to aim higher than her circumstances might have allowed.
She also points to the agency that steadied the family during its hardest stretch. “Nakita ko kung paano nakatulong ang OWWA sa family members. Sila’y nandyan upang magbigay ng clear path sa gusto mong tahakin. Hindi mabubuo yung success without the help of OWWA,” she said.
Her next milestone is the Social Worker Licensure Examination scheduled for this September. She hopes to carry her degree into community service and to stand as proof to others facing similar struggles that the path forward stays open. Her advice to fellow scholars is plain: “Feel the moment…magugulat ka na lang na ang lapit mo na sa goal mo.”
