THE Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation Inc., which provides sustainable financial and client-responsive developmental services to the poor especially women, held a business summit on November 10 in SMX Convention Center with a theme, “Mainstreaming Entrepreneurship Growth.”
Wilhelmina Gonzales, chairperson of Dungganon Bank Inc., was beaming with pride that their mission has reached so many lives especially the empowerment of women.
She said the Project Dungganon was put up in 1984 with the help of former Negros Occidental governor Daniel Lacson who convinced former provincial board member Cecilio del Castillo to set up a program of US-based Grammend Bank by Prof. Mohammed Yunus.
She said: "We started from nothing. But we were given the chance to study the Grammend model in Bangladesh. We studied the system by helping the poorest women become financially productive. We have replicated this model and it became very successful. We have around almost 3,000 employees."
For now, they have 450,000 clients in 139 branches in the Visayas, Bulacan, and Palawan.
“This is the fourth business summit where we gather our beneficiaries and clients of NWTF, a microfinance institution with its subsidiary, the Dungganon Bank Inc.,” Gonzales said.
"We have 500 plus clients in Negros Occidental attending the summit as we would like to help them expand and improve their business by giving them the rules and regulations coming from various government agencies that concern the small and business industries. This can truly guide them on how to properly manage their business and also knowing the rights of their employees and their employers. We would like to improve the thinking of our small beneficiaries through seminars and dialogues and through this summit that they will also realize they have some obligations not only to themselves, to their employees but also to the community so they can also contribute to the economy of Negros Occidental and the Philippines. Because of this summit, their dignity has been lifted up," she said.