Throughout 2024, the BS Social Work students of North Valley College Foundation, Inc. actively engaged in community-based initiatives across Kidapawan City, emphasizing empowerment, inclusion, and sustainable development. From January, programs like โSweet Success: Empowering IP Women Through Peanut Processingโ in Barangay Ilomavis equipped displaced Indigenous women with practical skills to produce sugar-coated peanuts, creating a viable small-scale business opportunity. The initiative went beyond technical training by fostering confidence, dignity, and hope, showing that even modest livelihood support can act as a springboard for local start-up ventures, aligning with SDG 1 (No Poverty) by promoting economic independence at the grassroots level.
Subsequent activities, such as โGrow Old, Grow Green: Backyard Gardening for the Elderlyโ and the โSeminar on Vegetable Planting Using Modern Technology,โ provided residents with the tools to cultivate food sustainably while exploring avenues for local income generation. By learning modern, eco-friendly farming methods like vertical gardening and composting, participants could produce surplus vegetables for home use or local sale. These projects demonstrated that targeted skills training, when paired with small-scale resource assistance seeds, tools, or starter kits can effectively catalyze micro-enterprise development, encourage responsible consumption, and strengthen community resilience.
By May, initiatives like โChili, Siomai, and Change: A Recipe for Sustainable Incomeโ for 4Ps beneficiaries reinforced the link between livelihood skills and entrepreneurial potential. Women participants not only mastered food processing techniques but also learned business planning, marketing, and product presentation, equipping them to start their own small businesses. Across all these projects, the students observed that even minimal financial support, combined with guidance and mentorship, allowed beneficiaries to launch micro-startups, sustain operations, and gradually build a path toward financial independence. These activities highlight how local start-up assistance, grounded in social work principles, can transform skills training into tangible economic opportunities, ultimately fostering self-reliance and contributing to multiple SDGs, particularly poverty reduction, gender equality, and decent work and economic growth.
DocumentationIndicators: SDG 1 No Poverty (1.4.1) Local start-up assistance
