Monday, April 07, 2008 Housewives to get livelihood training
INSTEAD of just staying home, some 80 housewives and unemployed women in Barangay Binaliw will have a livelihood, which is expected to increase the productivity of residents there.
Binaliw’s unemployed women will be trained to make T-shirts and will be making the uniforms of Cebu City Government employees, barangay officials and tanods, if Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s plan pushes through.
His son, Miguel, was in Binaliw last Thursday to discuss the plan with the barangay officials and the women’s group who will benefit from the project, which the mayor wants to replicate in all mountain barangays.
Binaliw is a mountain barangay 25 kilometers away from the city proper. Its 2,800 residents have small-scale businesses and others are employed, but most of them farm for a living.
In a phone interview, Miguel said the barangay officials and the beneficiaries of the project are enthusiastic about the new livelihood opportunity for Binaliw, which was chosen as the pilot area.
The Cebuano-owned Penshoppe garments company agreed to provide the City free technical assistance, particularly in the training component of the project.
“Penshoppe is assigning to us free of charge one of their operations managers to help us get started with the project. Their staff joined us in Binaliw last week to see the area where the people will be trained,” Miguel told Sun.Star Cebu.
Osmeña wants to train mountain barangay residents on T-shirt making so they can take over the contracts to supply uniforms, which would be limited to T-shirts once the residents learn how to make them.
Excited
The project will be one of the City’s poverty reduction programs.
Binaliw Barangay Captain Wilson Bacor said his constituents are excited about the project, with hopes that they can supplement the income they get from farming.
“Naa pa mi sa planning stage pero nakita na nako ang interes sa mga tawo kay wala man ni sila’y panginabuhi. Diri man gud sa amoa, menos kaayo ang livelihood sa mga tawo. Mao na nga nalipay gyud mi na gipili mi sa mayor na pilot area kay dako gyud ni ug ikatabang, mosaka gyud ilang productivity (We’re still planning but the people’s interest is apparent. We have so few livelihood options, so I am pleased the mayor picked us as the pilot area. This will help us a lot),” Bacor said. (LCR)
