SIXTY-FIVE residents, mostly women, recently received small grants for their income-generation activities from the Quezon City government.
Quezon City Social Services Development Department (SSDD) Office in Charge Fe P. Macale led the distribution of capital assistance to 65 proprietors of small enterprises on Monday.
The SSDD Vocational Development Program—also known as Small Income Generation Assistance—provides marginalized residents with seed capital to sustain their businesses and help them avoid usurious lenders.
Also in a city hall-wide activity recently, Quezon City Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte showcased the local government’s programs for women, as part of the city government’s action to promote economic empowerment and equality in business and livelihood opportunities. Belmonte highlighted the involvement of women in business, emphasizing city hall’s business and livelihood programs for women help them become financially independent.
She said, “Forty percent of big companies in the country are being managed by women. In Quezon City most of our entrepreneurs or business persons are women.” She added a similar project of the local government, Sikap Buhay, has almost 98 percent of those accessing microcredit for business start-up are women. Included in the Quezon City livelihood program for women are Tindahan ni Ate Joy, Lipad (Local Inclusiveness Project for the Advancement and Development)-Pinay Program, the Artisan Academy and Lazada E-commerce on-line selling.
Belmonte said the Tindahan ni Ate Joy has 1,000 members, most of whom are single mothers. They expanded the program to include the wives of drug dependents undergoing treatment in community rehabilitation centers.
The local government is including the wives of the drivers of colorum tricycles will also become beneficiaries of the program, while their husbands will be taught alternative livelihood skills.
Quezon City has also enlisted the help of Spark Foundation and Seaoil Foundation which recently launched Lipad Pinay that will train women on how to put up businesses that are a level up from other livelihood programs, such as soap making and meat processing. “With the help of the Rags2Riches Social Enterprise, the city government will also kick off Artisan Academy where the products of the community will be improved to reach world-class status,” Belmonte said.
She added the Rags2Riches project in Payatas has helped rag makers turn their materials into bags, which, instead of being sold at P10 a piece, now fetch P1,000 each.
Meanwhile, Lazada E-commerce will also conduct a seminar to teach women how to sell their products online that will largely benefit small businesses with inadequate earnings to build a store.
A few years ago, the local government established a fund that will provide micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) with surety cover for bank loans through a credit-support program developed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
Called the Quezon City Credit Surety Fund (QCCSF), it consists of contributions and earnings from participating MSMEs, whose members include non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and cooperatives. The fund will be used as security cover for the loans they obtained from the banks. Already, the Quezon City government has committed P5 million as counterpart contribution to the QCCSF.
BSP’s three partner/donor institutions—the Development Bank of the Philippines, Land Bank of the Philippines and the Industrial Guarantee and Loan Fund—and several NGOs and cooperative groups, will also be providing contributions to the QCCSF.
The initial total commitment for the fund was P20 million. The MSME must be a member of the contributing cooperatives or NGOs to apply for a loan under the program.