My name is Analyn, but my family and friends call me Anne. I am forty-two years old. I am from the Philippines. I am currently living in Quezon City with my family which consists of my husband and my three year old son. Though for the big part of the year, it is only me and my son as my husband is working as a medical assistant in a cruise ship. He is only staying here with us for about 2 months in a year.

I came from a big family. I have 2 brothers and 4 sisters and I am the youngest. All of my siblings have their own family already. My parents are now in their 80’s, they already have maintenance medicines but still quite strong for their age as they can still do some house chores. My mother can still cook the best chicken adobo and caldereta that I know of. While my father still loves planting vegetables and some ornamental plants. On special occasions, we always look for a bigger place to celebrate if all the kids and grandkids are coming. It is always my duty to prepare games and activities for the kids.

This is because my family knows that I am good at it being a primary school teacher by profession. I love being with kids. I am an Education graduate and board passer and I taught grade school pupils for 4 years as my first job. I especially love our science subject where simple experiments are a delight to the kids. You can see their excitement and it brings joy to the heart of anybody who will see or observe. Its pure joy!

As a teacher, it is not only teaching assigned classes on time; but other functions and responsibilities come with it such as but is not limited to – ensuring that all pupils are safe, secure and properly supervised at all times, ensuring classroom is clean and orderly, planning and implementing educational activities too. I am a believer that play is an important part of a child’s physical and cognitive development. With this, I try to incorporate as much games/play in my lessons.

During this time, I have gained my experience with children, and not just the teaching stuff part. It is not only the kids that have learned from me but I also learned a lot from them. And this has become very helpful now that I have my own child. I can say that I am a better mother because of that experience as I can apply those insights I have learned with my own son as he is growing up. I am aware of kids’ developmental milestones and what red flags to look out for. I know how to prepare nutritious food that a child should eat and I can try to make it look pleasing. And this is important because taking care of a child is not just feeding, bathing, or changing diapers.

At the start of the pandemic, I am still working as an insurance advisor and trying to service clients online. That means holding online meetings, preparing forms/claims and submitting them online among other things. This I do while taking care of my toddler and also looking at my elderly mother-in-law with some medical conditions. During this time, efficient time management is a must more than ever as we cannot have any outside help. Effective time management, patience, attention to details, compassionate – these are some of my qualities that I know is essential in a caregiver.       

Further, I took Caregiver Course to help develop my skills to become an effective caregiver.  This gave me the knowledge to provide effective care to any client or family member, including the ability to deal with emergencies calmly. My collective knowledge and experiences of taking care of my son and some elders in the family is important in itself because I learned to do those things because I want to be able to take care of them better. This and the formal training I took is a great tool to be effective in this job.                                               

I speak English and Filipino, my local dialect. And I would love to learn French if given the chance.

My favourite colour is light blue because it is very calming. My comfort food is ice cream but I try to eat more vegetables than meat. I like planting ornamental plants and vegetables as well. In my free time, I love reading books and watching movies.

I would love to go to Canada because I think it is a beautiful country with its splendid landscape – huge parks, conservation areas and big open spaces. And best of all, Canadians are known to be very friendly and polite. It is always my dream to live and work in a foreign country and I am really excited that it will become a reality soon! What a great way to do the job that I love most and at the same time fulfilling my dreams for my family.