Quezon City Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte has spearheaded the awarding of variety store start-up packages to a new batch of 200 single parents under the “Tindahan ni Ate Joy” program.
“I am proud to say that this is one of the high-impact projects from our office. We have now reached the 6th batch, and every batch consists of 200 solo parents who receive the store package to become an entrepreneur,” she said.
Since the program was launched in 2012, 1,200 qualified solo parents have been granted P10,000 worth of grocery merchandise as start-up business support, Belmonte said.
Women who are widowed, got separated from their husbands, or whose husbands left them for another woman are the program’s priority, the vice mayor said.
“Many of them are left alone to care for their kids and don’t receive money from their spouses who left them. That’s why we want to transform solo parents, especially women, into micro-entrepreneurs running their own variety stores,” she added.
Women must be empowered economically, Belmonte said, and according to the vice mayor, the program has an 85-percent high success.