The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), through its Field Office IV-A, has recently awarded PhP 2Million worth of capital assistance to more than 200 poor families in Real, Quezon Province. This is under the agency’s Bottom-Up Budgeting (BUB) – Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP).

The SLP, one of the core poverty reduction programs of the DSWD, is a community-based capacity building program that equips participants to actively contribute to production and livelihood markets through micro-enterprise development or employment facilitation. Priority participants under this program are beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program as one of the convergence strategies of the Department to ensure sustainability of the gains of the program and help beneficiaries meet self-sufficiency.

In the BUB scheme, the SLP is implemented together with the local government unit where the local residents participate in the planning and budgeting of resources for poverty reduction projects.

In the said municipality, beneficiaries provided with the capital assistance are four group enterprises namely Lubayat Ornamentals, Tignoan Bagong Pag-asa, Uno Parents and Ungos Angat-Buhay associations with at least 50 members each. Majority of the said beneficiaries are members of the DSWD’s Pantawid Pamilya program.

Each group was provided PhP500,000 where individual members will receive PhP5,000 to PhP10,000 capital assistance for their chosen micro-enterprise activities.

DSWD IV-A Leticia T. Diokno shared to the recipients of the capital assistance to use the help from the program to earn additional income for their respective families.

According to Dir. Diokno, this will not only help the parents to meet their families’ daily needs but also help the children finish college.

Further, she thanked the local government unit of Real for supporting the DSWD in its goal to improve the living condition of poor families.

Rochelle Aumentado, one of the recipients of the assistance from Brgy. Poblacion I in the municipality, shared her gratitude for the opportunity provided to parents like her to work for the benefit of their children.

Besides the four associations, there are 12 other SLP associations being organized in the municipality for capacity building and funding this year.# with reports from JOCuya