ADB funding offers fresh lease of life for Mindanao market vendors
21 Jul '06
3 min read
Asian Development Bank (ADB) announces that the market in Panabo, in the southern Philippine province of Davao del Norte, times have been hard for 68-year-old vendor Remedios Homesillo.
Balancing parenthood with eking out a meager living has not been easy for any of the vendors. And with business now on the downturn, there is often little for them to do but sit and gossip.
But a new project has been trying to bring new hope and incomes to the vendors to help break them out of the cycle of poverty and debt, by teaching them new skills, improving working conditions, and in the process helping them become better parents.
Backed by a US$1 million grant from ADB's Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction, financed by the Government of Japan, the project is targeting about 1,600 poor women vendors in public markets in eight areas of Mindanao. Aside from Panabo, these include Mahayag, Zamboanga del Sur; Ozamiz, Misamis Occidental; Kidapawan City, Cotabato; Surigao City, Surigao del Norte; Cabadbaran, Agusan del Norte; and in the towns of Buluan and Parang in Maguindanao.
An important feature of the project is the establishment in each town of a women's resource center (WRC) to provide space for training, a drop-in clinic, daycare for pre-schoolers, and cold storage, lockers, and wash rooms, all available at a minimal fee.
The WRCs have become in effect the nerve center for all the women's activities where they can meet and interact like a sisterhood, says Myrna Lim, Executive Director of the Notre Dame Foundation for Charitable Activities, Inc. Women Enterprise Development (NDFCAI-WED), the project's implementing agency.
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