DAVAO DEL NORTE, March 4 (PIA) – – Recognized by the ASEAN Business Advisory Council Philippines as a Small and Medium Enterprise Excellence Awardee, the Tagum City Council of Women Inc (TCCWI) extended its arms to help another micro enterprise in the city.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
TCCWI President Alma Uy stressed during a press conference earlier today that the council saw the need to assist the women, who are producing bamboo sticks using their bare hands.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir manual labor may cause them injuries in their hands and they said that as they aged, they will have a hard time folding their fingers,\u201d Uy said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She emphasized that to help these women, there is a need to mechanize the production of bamboo sticks for their health and for their families.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThese women can only produce five bundles of 100 bamboo sticks a day, which is sold at P-6 per bundle or an income of P-30 a day, which is not enough to feed their families in a day,\u201d Uy said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Through the TCCWI, the bamboo stick producers will receive a P1.3-million worth of Shared Service Facility from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The SSF, which will be launched on March 29, will include bamboo pole cutter, splitter, width and thickness cutter, stick slicer, length cutter, polisher and sharpening machine.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe machine will arrive on the weekend; that\u2019s the time that we will have to conduct a dry run to determine its production capacity and the needed manpower.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Uy added that among the assistance that they will extend were institutional development by forming the producers into a cooperative and market linkage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, we have a market that will get unlimited supply to be distributed nationwide.\u201d<\/p>\n