UP ISSI was once again tapped by the Microfinance Council of the Philippines, Inc. (MCPI) to mentor more winners of the Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards (CMA) in Luzon.
Phase Two of the Citi Mentoring Program is currently ongoing, adding eight more awardees who will be mentored by UP ISSI seasoned experts in small business counseling. These and nine others from Phase One will be mentored in all aspects of the business so that the mentees can improve their respective businesses and elevate their products and services.
For Phase Two, mentors will reach as far north as La Trinidad, Benguet; Bagulin, La Union and Bagabag, Nueva Vizcaya; and as far south as Pinamalayan, Oriental Mindoro and Batangas City. These, as the mentors visit mentees in Binangonan and Taytay, Rizal and Maria Aurora in Aurora province.
Meanwhile, mentees from Phase One who will also be visited for followup and monitoring are those located in various towns in Laguna, San Jose del Monte in Bulacan, Taytay in Rizal province, Baler in Aurora province and Alfonso Castaneda in Nueva Vizcaya.
The CMA is an annual nationwide search for outstanding Filipino micro entrepreneurs funded by Citi Foundation, the philanthropic arm of multinational banking and financial services corporation Citigroup. It is done in partnership with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and MCPI, a non-stock, non-profit development organization for microfinance institutions in the Philippines.
In 2015, the CMA Country Team decided to add a mentoring component to the awards program, starting with the past winners in Luzon. Thus, MCPI engaged the services of UP ISSI to undertake the mentoring program initially for 15 past winners of the CMA in Luzon.
This year, MCPI is once again tapping ISSI to continue mentoring selected nine past recipients of the program and eight additional CMA winners in Luzon for a continuation of the said mentoring program in what will be called Phase Two of the project.
The author is one of the mentors of this mentoring program with MCPI and Citi.