She symbolizes positive change.
Poverty has pushed her to stop schooling after she graduated from high school to give way to her other siblings to be enrolled in elementary.
Being the eldest daughter among the eight siblings,JomalynLucena, 21 of Barangay Imba, Caluya in Antique provincesaid her heart has been torn into pieces many times when she saw her sisters and brothers eating root crops from breakfast to dinner or even eating rice once a day only.

Taking responsibility of helping her parents, Jomalynhas decided to work as stay-in nanny in one of her mother’s friends and earned P 2,500 monthly just enough to buy some of their monthly needs.
She has been working for almost two years until such time that their family was includedin the PantawidPamilyang Pilipino Program where she got a chance to avail of the Students Grant-in-Aid Program for Poverty Alleviation (ESGP-PA).
On the same year, her mother was luckily employed as barangay utility worker while her father has been working as a laborer.
At first, she wanted to take up Bachelor of Science in Accounting but it was not included in the priority curricular programs of the Commission on Education (CHED). Instead, she has chosen to enroll in the Bachelor of Science in Agriculture (BSA) just to finish college.
However, Jomalynhas to leave her family in exchange of the scholarship at West Visayas State University (WVSU) Calinog campus in Iloilo province. Her two other younger sisters, one has already graduated from high school while the other one is undergraduate, also offered to help by providing her school needs. Both of her sisters worked as housekeepers.
Since Caluyais the farthest town in Antique just near Mindoro or Region 4-B, it takes four hours for Jomalyn to travel before reaching the mainland of Libertad, Antique and another two hours of land travel before reaching Kalibo, Aklan where she would take another seven hours of travel going to Calinog, Iloilo.
This is the reason why Jomalyn seldom went homeand just spent her timereading and studying her lesson inside her small rented room.
Jomalynhad good grades as she graduated magna cum laude on March 30, 2016.
Jomalyn is one of the first batch of 207 ESGP-PA scholars who graduated from the different state universities in the region. She topped among92 graduates of Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and Forestry.

DSWD HEAD GRACES RITES
DSWD Sec. Corazon Soliman graced the graduation rites.
On her speech, Soliman encouraged all graduates to return to their respective hometown and apply what they have learned from their school so they could “help their communities.”
Soliman added that graduates should prioritize working at their town than working in Manila or abroad.

PLAN
Jomalyn said she will be going back to Caluya to look for a job.
“I wish I could find a better job so I could send my other siblings to school,” she stressed.
Jomalynalso said she has four other siblings who are in elementary level, three of them are covered by PantawidPamilya.
“The program helped us in so many ways especially on our education and health. That’s why I am confident that my three siblings could finish their high school as long as the program is always there,” she added.
Jomalynalso wants her two other sisters to stop working as househelp and continue their schooling./dswd6/MontesaCaoyonan