Along with the Cooperative Development Authority, the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) has successfully conducted a cooperative pre-membership seminar for members of an urban poor community organization in two villages in Kawit, Cavite.
Rosemarie Makimkim, Project Development and Resource Mobilization Unit chief, said the seminar was initiated in line with the PCUP’s mandate of providing livelihood opportunities to the country’s marginalized and underprivileged sector through the organization of
urban poor groups into cooperatives for a better chance of improving their lives.
Ismael Fambula, CDA cooperative development officer, spearheaded the conduct of the seminar that participated in by 27 representatives of the Kawit Community Urban Poor from barangays Aplaya and Magdalo Putol, led by their overall president Jessie Florendo. Rio N. Araja
Makimkim briefed the participants that to organize themselves into cooperatives would mean a better chance for more assistance from the national government and even for much-needed loans.
Florendo thanked the PCUP and CDA for their efforts in organizing them into a cooperative and giving them seminars and training so that their plans of expanding the operation of the Aplaya Livelihood Garment Inc. they have already put up could be fast-tracked and the laundry start-up project in Magdalo Putol would finally be realized.
PCUP chairperson Undersecretary Elpidio Jordan Jr. lauded the efforts of the PDRMU in providing livelihood opportunities to the urban poor in Kawit with the help of the CDA, stressing that the initiative would make the poverty alleviation program of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. easier to achieve.
“This is the kind of project that would help our people in fighting poverty because through it they are empowered to give direction to their lives for a better future that is attainable and sustainable,” he said.