By Hilda Austria/PNA
BAYAMBANG, Pangasinan — Some 32 poor families here have an additional source of livelihood, as they received food carts on Wednesday from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), through the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP).
Arlene Sison, project development officer of DSWD in this town, said 11 of the beneficiaries received siopao or siomai food carts worth PHP16,000 each, while the 21 others obtained burger or fries food carts worth PHP18,000 each.
“Each cart has all the necessary utensils, equipment and products to enable the beneficiaries to start earning immediately,” Sison said in an interview on Thursday.
She said in return, the program participants or the beneficiaries must deposit PHP300 monthly to their organization Food Cart SLP as their savings, which they can withdraw and spend after two years.
“They should not sell their food carts because if they do, they would pay twice the worth of the food carts. We will monitor them monthly,” she added.
Prior to the release of the food carts, the chosen beneficiaries underwent entrepreneurship training and basic business management seminar.
Aside from the 32 food carts, the DSWD will release 31 more food carts with bike worth PHP18,000 each to other poor families in the town on the first week of December, she said.
Sison further said the food carts are part of the PHP9.2-million funds downloaded by the DSWD to the municipality of Bayambang allotted this year.
“We have proposed these projects in 2016 and the amount was transferred to the municipality last year. But the guidelines changed, hence, these were only awarded this year,” she said.
Among the projects included in the PHP9.2 million-funds are distribution of hogs, goats and seed capital to indigents in the town, Sison added.
