Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Bauko Women Get Support From SLU LAW, U.S. Embassy


By Kurt Paul G. Bagayao

Five associations of Women Farmers from Bauko, Mt. Province attended a three-day seminar on Business start-ups as their alternative source of livelihood and were briefed about their rights as Women on key gender sensitivity issues thru the initiative of the Saint Louis University’s School of Law-Chief Justice Manuel V. Moran Community Legal Assistance Office and the United States Embassy last June 3-5, 2016 at Garden Breeze Hotel at Buguias, Benguet.

Dubbed as “Business Start-up and Maintenance Workshop with Gender and Development Training”, some 42 representatives of the associations came to join the seminar-workshop. The said Legal Aid Clinic, tapped the services of Lorraine Ngaosi- Entrepreneurship Educators’ Association of the Philippines member and an Entrepreneurship professor of Saint Louis University, to provide the lecture-workshop which centered on starting alternative sources of income related to gardening and maintaining cash in-flow for their respective associations.

Atty. Jennifer Asuncion spoke on “Gender and Development in the Context of Cordilleran Indigenous Peoples” and the Violence Against Women and their Children Act (RA 9262), focusing on the crucial role of women on community-building.


The three-day event culminated with the receiving of Php 80,000.00 grant for each association provided by the United States Embassy, Manila which will be used for alternative business start-ups that include Arabica Coffee production, Mushroom production, and the children’s wear making. The representatives Women’s Associations include: Mount Data Kataguan Womens Association (MDKWA), Sadsadan Advocate on Social Development Organization Inc. (SASDO), Ampasit Women’s Organization (AWO), Aweng Di Ampasit, and St. Bede. Mushroom and Vegetable Growers Association (SBMVGA). Arsenia Addon, Secretary to Bauko Mayor Abraham Akilit, said that this seminar was “timely and crucial as the fourth-class municipality has a 63.5% poverty incidence which the Local Government seeks to address.

The CJ Moran Community Legal Assistance Office, the Saint Louis University School of Law’s Legal Aid Clinic, is the only school-based Legal Aid Clinic in Northern Luzon that provides free legal services to indigents as well as support to various community needs in Cordillera and the rest of Luzon.