Beyond the seed money: Women entrepreneurs

Because of the numerous activities we had during the 13th Press Freedom Week, I couldn’t attend the launching of a book by the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) entitled, “Beyond the Seed Money: Business Success in the Grassroots.” Last Sept.19th. Thanks to Mrs. Dominica B. Chua, Chief Operating Officer of RAFI, she sent me this book. I was able to read through it and let me say that I was amazed at the stories of those 19 successful women whose lives were transformed because they were given the opportunity to avail of loans, where no bank would ever dare give them a chance.

We’ve written a great deal about RAFI’s activities and featured them on my show in “Straight from the Sky” because they have done a great service to the Cebuano community thanks to the Corporate Social Responsibility of the Aboitiz family and their group of companies. But just when I thought I already knew a lot about the activities of RAFI, especially its programs to develop the youth into the entrepreneurs of the future and have better citizens for Cebu’s tomorrow, they came up with this micro-financing program.

This book features 19 successful women entrepreneurs in Cebu, Leyte and Bohol. They are women whom I’m sure that you’ve never heard before, nor will you ever find their names or photos in Cebu’s society pages. But what makes this book so interesting is that, it tells a story about the greatness of Filipino women who belong to the grassroots, living a life of abject poverty where hopelessness is so prevalent.

Apparently nine years ago, RAFI came up with a program to help jobless women belonging to the circle of poverty to develop themselves into micro-entrepreneurs and in doing so, they are able to improve their standard of living on a sustainable basis by providing them with financial assistance, where none can be found. These women are mostly widows or housewives, whose husbands are jeepney, taxi or trisikad drivers, dock workers, farmers or fishermen, who need to help their spouse and augment the family income.

In the foreword of this book, Ms. Dominica B. Chua said that they created the Cebu Micro Enterprise Development Foundation, Inc. (CMEDFI) with a starting capitalization of P5 million. Nine years later CMEDFI now has close to 9,000 clients and currently disburses P256 million in loans, with a P30.9 million in outstanding loan balance. But perhaps the best news of all is that their repayment rate for their loans is a high 98%! This is a better rate of repayment than most banks, where businessmen so often default on their loans leaving the banks with a high rate of non-performing assets.

Today CMEDFI, like the story of the mustard seed, has grown into an organization that moves a huge amount of money, bigger than most rural banks! In nine years of operation, this non-stock, non-profit micro-finance group operates not only in Cebu, but they are now in nearby Bohol and Leyte reaching a total of 72 municipalities and 7 cities. While most banks advertise their place of business through newspapers, radio or television, CMEDFI officers do not wait for clients to knock on their door. Rather they go out everyday to the barangays and seek out those poor women who are in need of micro-financing. This is truly an outreach program designed to help alleviate poverty right in the grassroots level.

These women belong to the poverty level. They could never hope to enter a regular bank and get a loan because our current banking system does not cater to people who cannot present any kind of collateral. Hence, these women could never hope to borrow money from any bank to finance their entrepreneurial dreams.

Worse of all, most of these poor women are often hapless victims of the so-called “5-6” moneylenders, those wily loan sharks who charge usurious interest rates who take advantage of these poor people who have no collateral to offer in return for a small loan. The great majority of Filipinos fall in this category where there is a great need for micro-financing to fuel what is known as the “underground” economy. 

This bring us back to the book “Beyond the Seed Money” which features stories of the triumph of women whose lives were literally transformed because they were given the opportunity to get a loan based only on their honest faces, their good character and their discipline in repaying their loans dutifully. Of the close to 9,000 women who have benefited from the micro-financing by CMEDFI, 19 outstanding women are featured in this book because their story is worth telling. I suggest you get hold of a copy of this very interesting book about the women who belong to the underground economy who someday will be joining the mainstream of our society. Thanks to the Godly work of CMEFI and RAFI.