YouthHackers at The Enactus Pinay Empowerment Series
CALAUAN, LAGUNA — Last June 1 2016, I had the opportunity to talk about “Entrepreneurship and The World” together with YouthHack Region IV-A’s Director, Patricia Marcella Evite. This is a part of the three-day Pinay Empowerment Series of Enactus UP Los Banos with a theme of “Gearing the Entrepreneurial Pinay to the World”.
The series aimed to empower the women of Southville 7 about gender sensitivity, social entrepreneurship, agricultural marketing and cash accounting system and food security.
Southville 7 is a 107-hectare resettlement site co-managed by ABS-CBN Lingkod Kapamilya Foundation, Inc. and National Housing Authority. Currently, it houses 5,655 families from Estero de Paco and Estero de Pandakan in Manila including the victims of typhoon Ondoy.
At first, I was actually nervous to give a talk but my takeaways from YouthHack helped me go through with it. My reluctance turned into an opportunity for us to share what we know and what we have experienced.
Here are some of the highlights in our session of Entrepreneurship and the World:
You are your own boss. The beauty of starting your own venture is that you are in-charge of its direction, from how big and far you want it to flourish, to establishing your target market and working conditions. The time you contribute is in your hands as well so you take control and decide how you want it to affect your other life commitments.
Engaging in entrepreneurship will give you a family — a diverse one. Outside the conventional working environment lies a bond that is more than colleagues. It also opens opportunities to expand your network and allows you to meet people who are visionaries, creative thinkers, and enthusiasts of many fields.
Social ventures serve a market bigger than themselves. Entrepreneurship is not only limited to gaining profit but expands to reaching out to others, helping them with your business. Social entrepreneurs are ambitious and persistent in affecting wide-scale change. They focus on creating innovative solutions. In YouthHack, we offer avenues for the development of these ideas in our Startup Challenge.
Examples of entrepreneurs and products of entrepreneurship were also cited to give inspiration on how far these people have come with just simple yet innovative ideas and willingness to improve their lives. Some of these were ventures under Gawad Kalinga — Bambike, First Harvest and Mabuhay Restop Travel.
According to Ma. Victoria S. Yamson (52)—President of Homeowners Association Site II, the women of Southville 7 are provided with knowledge and equipment but they lack on marketing skills, strategies and networks. This was the motivation of the last parts of our session and the whole series as well.
Marketing is an ingredient to the success of your business.
In a game after our learning session, we invited two ladies to make an elevator pitch, convincing their co-attendees to purchase a simple folding umbrella. It helped us gauge how much they already knew about what are the essentials of a great pitch. Some of them already had experience in sales while the others enumerated the difficulties which hindered them from doing so. Based on this mini Q&A, we provided them with a crash course on “How to Be An Entrepreneur”.
Elisha Ruth P. Nedamo, a UPLB Agricultural Economics student, taught them the basic agricultural marketing and Kevin SM. Cuevas introduced them the KKASH. This new technology in finance will provide, not only an easy way to record their finances on their businesses, but also address the problem in the organizational record-keeping and auditing.
The women also visited the International Rice Research Institute on the last day and learned about how importance rice production, food security and agricultural industry in the economic development of the Philippines. They are now the pioneer members of Amiga Philippines, a business consultancy program of Enactus.
Standing in front of 16 women who were eager to be equipped with the necessary knowledge and strategies to be empowered entrepreneurs was actually very fulfilling. Their eagerness to suffice the needs fueled us to really teach them and inform them.
Kudos to Enactus UP Los Banos for conducting this event and reaching out to the women of Calauan! Thank you for the opportunity to take part in equipping these ladies with what they need to succeed.
Enactus UP Los Banos is the official international business-oriented student organization of University of the Philippines Los Baños and representative to the Enactus network — a global community of students, educators and business leaders committed to using entrepreneurial action to create a better more sustainable world. You may visit them at enactus.org.
Paulo Luis Zipagan is a sophomore taking up BS Development Communication. He is the current Associate Director for Internal Affairs and Human Resources of YouthHack CALABARZON. You may reach him through pzipagan@youthhack.net.
Parts of this article were contributed by Vanessa Meclat.
