MCCI hosts livelihood seminar for entrepreneurs

CEBU, Philippines - In its bid to create more entrepreneurs and helping them start up with their businesses, the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry yesterday opened a two-day livelihood training seminar in Parkmall at the North Reclamation Area in Mandaue City.

The livelihood training seminar is a new component of this year’s Mandaue Business Month.

MBM 2009 chairman Philip Tan said that this is part of their advocacy to reach out to the people and help them gain further knowledge and skills to enable them to be financially stable.

Tan said that due to the financial crisis that struck the whole world including Philippines, a huge fraction of the Filipino workforce lost their jobs as companies folded up while some resorted to slashing their workforce to ease up the negative effects of the crisis.

He said that this was their way of helping out and giving chance for those who lost their jobs to have other means of livelihood.

This is also the chamber’s long term response to poverty.

“They are all entrepreneurs of their own right” added Tan who explained that after the two-day training on different skills in partnership with different government agencies such as the Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Labor and employment, they will be choosing 10 trainees and be giving out a grant of P10,000 each.

Tan said that the participants will be going through different courses and topics in the two days and will also be taught on how to make business plans and proposals.

This would be their basis of choosing the beneficiaries of the grant.

He added that transitions on the business industry would also be shared since he said that venturing in to their sector could be very challenging.

Tan added that these small businesses or called the Micro-enterprise should be given importance since their sector contributes greatly in the economy as 95 percent of all businesses belong to this group.

Sixth District Representative Nerissa Soon-Ruiz graced the event and acknowledged the activity organized by MCCI and the change it made from training their own members to extending their expertise to more people in their community.

Ruiz said that the activity was a great realization of what should be done to help further the people, especially those who are greatly affected by the financial instability.

Aside from the talks on franchising and how to start of with businesses, booths are also around the area where exhibitors have displayed products that are open for franchising.— AJ de la Torre