CFP-PBCI FAMILY GIVES BIRTH TO WOMEN’S SOCIAL ENTERPRISE INITIATIVES AS A RESPONSE TO COVID19 REALITIES

ByLakan Sumulong

The message of Peace and Reconciliation (PAR) is articulated and demonstrated even in the midst of CoViD19 public health crisis in our land. This is particularly made possible by 7 budding women entrepreneurs who are being mentored by the CFP-PBCI Tribe. They are Mary, Sihaya, Annie, Wanay, Mandy, Bennette, and Diane. They are developing their own micro-enterprise and have been marketing their products and experiencing encouraging results.

Because of, and in spite of, the crisis of pandemic, Coffee for Peace and PeaceBuilders Community were able to identify, assess, and train key staff members who have the aptitude and the attitude to be social entrepreneurs.

  • An experienced food service worker starts her own business producing healthy and nutritious loaves of bread and sells them at a just price to mothers in the urban poor areas, who in turn, sells them at a just price (that is, less expensive than commercial bread) to their neighbors.
  • A woman and her boyfriend (both trained in community development) are being led to start farming to show-and-tell the farming community how to become ‘farmerpreneurs’ based on the knowledge bank and experience of Coffee for Peace.
  • A young mother started producing a shrimp paste and it sells well; this delicacy enhances the taste of the local vegetables that the poor can buy with their scarce resources.
  • An Indigenous woman organized a native weaving community, mostly women, and produced face masks being sold internationally.
  • Another woman started a baking business and orders from around the city are coming in; the income helps sustain her volunteer work at PBCI-CFP social networking tasks.
  • A young wife and her team are growing a supply chain of farm produce from the farmers in the provinces to the consumers in Manila and it’s expanding; a big chunk of the income are used to buy fruits-and-vegetables as part of relief distribution among Metro Manila’s urban poor communities.
  • A young business and finance professional started her own bookkeeping and accounting services focusing specifically to the needs of social enterprises.

Here are their stories:

Mary’s Oven

Mary Selorio has been involved in food services for 20 years both in the U.S. and in China. She is one of our impact investment partners at Coffee for Peace. She has been our Managing Partner at Coffee For Peace Café since 2016. Mary’s specialization are cakes and pastries. Mary’s Oven has been supplying Coffee for Peace Café with quality desserts that has been attracting new café clients. The products of Mary’s Oven, along with her cheerful customer relations skills, are significant factors in developing our long-term café clientele.

A and J Mahayahay Farm

Aldren Banal and Jobelyn Basas (Indigenous name, Sihaya Ansibod) are partners in peace and reconciliation (PAR) advocacy and in social entrepreneurial initiative. Aldren is taking the two-year full-time social entrepreneurial course at the PeaceBuilders School of Leadership, specializing in marketing. Sihaya has been with us for the past seven years—starting as an intern, then became a field operations worker, and now serving as Director of Field Operations. Sihaya belongs to the Erumanen ne Menuvu Indigenous People.

We encourage our staff, whom we see as gifted in business, to be social entrepreneurs. Aldren and Sihaya chose to explore being farmer-entrepreneurs or ‘farmerpreneurs’ and we’re committed to support them as they build up their own equities. With their own savings, they bought a vegetable and coffee farm they now refer to as A and J Mahayahay Farm, and they want to develop it as a Coffee for Peace Model Farm.

Annie’s Shrimp Paste

Annie Cat is our beloved Frani Catua. Her business name is “Annie.” Frani is a mother of two daughters, both in elementary school. Her husband, Jobel, works in the Middle East. Frani studied hotel and restaurant management at Philippine Women’s College in Davao City. She has been with PeaceBuilders Community since we started in 2006. She’s also a trained barista at Coffee for Peace. Annie is our full-time cook at the PBCI center, appreciated by our local, national, and international guests.

Frani produces shrimp paste, a Philippine delicacy. As an Indigenous person belonging to the Ata Manobo community, her product is prepared with native touch and at the same time handled with internationally-accepted food preparation standards. This project is a personal investment by Frani, who dreams of sharing her PAR-framed entrepreneurial skills to her fellow Ata Manobo in her home village.

Kalinga PeaceMask

Wanay S. Baluyan belongs to the Banao Indigenous People in Kalinga Province, Northern Philippines. She founded her own company called Kalinga Woven Fabrics Manufacturing. Her current main product is the Kalinga PeaceMask. Wanay finished our two-year social entrepreneurial course at the PeaceBuilders School of Leadership.

After her PAR facilitator’s training and entrepreneurial internship, she went back to her province and gathered local native weavers. They used the indigenous woven fabrics as materials for clothing, hand bags, scarves and other products. Then CoViD19 crisis came. Facemasks became a hot demand. Now, they’re getting orders nationally and internationally for their main brand—Kalinga PeaceMask.

Mandy’s Artisan Bread

Amanda Velasco-Pantoja is a multi-talented artist. She is a fashion designer by profession and a skilled business woman. During the pandemic, she found more time to develop one of her passions—baking.

We were her pilot customers. Our community began to love her line of artisan bread. Mandy’s Focaccia Bread became a favorite, first by her friends, then by her friends’ friends. Now, she’s getting orders from all over Davao City. She’s not yet planning to make this her main business. She just enjoys baking and appreciates the increasing sales. Mandy’s husband is Byron, the youngest of our three children. Mandy and Byron are the parents of our 7th grandchild—Zylie Estrella.

ProducePeace+ Wild Honey

We have shared with you the story of Bennette Grace Tenecio Mañulit and her team at Produce Peace+. The new development is that, on top of fruits and vegetable distribution, they’re now involved in marketing wild honey produced by their new partner community—an Indigenous People’s farming association on Mt. Daraitan, Province of Rizal.

We continue to be grateful to the Creator for Bennette’s husband, Norman, who works in Kuwait as a dental technician. We also pray, with much gladness, for Bennette, Maimai Lim, and their team as they manage the growth and development of Produce Peace+ social enterprise.

SE Accounting Solutions Philippines

The Social Enterprise Accounting Solutions Philippines provides business and financial consulting services specifically for social enterprises in the Philippines. This is founded and is being developed by Diane Grace A. Regencia.

In 2010, she completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting Technology at the Ateneo de Davao University. She is currently taking a second degree — Bachelor of Science in Accountancy — at the Philippine Women’s College in Davao City.

Reggie, as she prefers to be called, is our Business & Finance Specialist at PBCI-CFP. We, PeaceBuilders Community, Inc. and Coffee for Peace, Inc., are SE Accounting Solutions’ first clients.