New CCCI prexy initiates program to aid carpenters

CEBU, Philippines – The newly appointed president of Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry kicks off his prexy duties with a program intended to help carpenters and contractual construction workers.

CCCI president Sam Chioson said the chamber is currently formulating ways how to help the sector and hopefully will be launching this program soon.

He said that the program will include providing professional trainings for carpenters as well as give them access to the business sector in order to sustain their daily income. A database of carpenters will be created, in addition to the already existing workers’ records of different construction companies here.

 “We are planning to improve the livelihood of carpenters,” Chioson said that while providing professional training for this community, the chamber will also link them with the construction companies, or the construction material vendors.

He said if empowered by practical knowledge and improved skills training, these carpenters are bound to become entrepreneurs.

Some families are depending solely on the daily income of their father from carpentering while the mother is attending to the household.

Most families of neighborhood carpenters cannot send their children to school, because their income is barely enough to buy them food and shelter expenses.

Since most carpenters can only get jobs based on project deals, or renovation and repair jobs from neighbors and referrals, most of them are also doing extra livelihood activities like side-walk vending, driving “tri-sikad”, or motor-for-hire, and other available money making activities.

For the longest time, this informal sector—carpentry, has not been given attention by some sectors. The chamber on the other hand, is initiating this move to lift the skills of carpentry, after-all this is one of the in demand jobs in other countries, like Middle East, Australia and others.

Introducing the carpenters to embrace into entrepreneurship is not a far-fetched idea, considering that if they are linked with the construction material vendors, carpenters can easily close business deal with the vendors, as they are the direct agents to the end-users.

Aside from pushing this program under his term, Chioson said he is equally pursuing the existing major projects started by his predecessors such as the Cebu Economic Advisory Group (CEAG), and the Cebu Economic Development Zone (CEDZ), among others.

The chamber targets to launch this noble project that is geared towards uplifting the livelihood and lifestyles of the carpenters’ families, after the Cebu Business Month celebration.