Over 18,547 women in C. Visayas benefit from DSWD’s sustainable livelihood program

MINERVA BC NEWMAN

CEBU CITY – More than 18,547 women in Central Visayas benefitted from the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in 2020, according to Leah Quintana, DSWD-7 regional information officer.

Quintana said that many of these women/beneficiaries expressed their gratitude to the program especially during this time of pandemic where massive lockdown continues to limit access to income, food and goods.

Valentina Razola, a member of the Barangay Biga Women Workers Association of Biga, Toledo City, Cebu said that when she became a member of this association, she was given a chance to earn on her own to provide for the family needs.

Valentina, along with the other members of the association worked and served their community through their business that got funded by the SLP.   Valentina stands as the head of the family since her husband, a construction worker was forced to stop working due to community lockdown.

Irene Antenero, a mat weaver in San Francisco, Cebu also shared that mat weaving is a laborious job. It takes a lot of effort to do one mat and the profit was just enough.

 The price of the regular size mat is P100, the double size mat, P150 which are brought and sold in Danao City.

Irene and her husband have been in this business for 15 years, but the pandemic has affected their livelihood making it more difficult to sustain the business.  She is one of the beneficiaries of the Livelihood Assistance grant (LAG).  She received P5,000 cash assistance from SLP which she used the money to buy materials for mat weaving.

“Even if we were still in community quarantine, I continued weaving mats so that, when the situation would normalize and the quarantine lifted, I already have stocks of mats to sell," Irene said in dialect.

Life was hard, she added.  The family just took crops from its backyard like camote tops or banana plantains and sell them to the neighbors to make money.  It was hard earning a living during the pandemic. Orders for native mats are scarce, so “we need to improvise to survive," Irene narrated.

Irene and Valentina are some of the pictures of women who benefitted from the program and were thankful for the assistance given to them and their families. (Photos: DSWD-7)