CCDC Assists Adopted Community’s Poultry and Basket Weaving Industries

As a higher education institution, CCDC is committed to its mandate of quality instruction, research and extension services.  Banayakeo, Poblacion, Atok, Benguet has been the adopted community of CCDC since 2018, being one of secluded communities of the municipality.  The community households are farmers and homemakers.  With the prevalence of bamboo in the area, the women in the community have learned basket weaving using bamboo and also have an existing poultry farm which was initially funded by the government as a loan.  

When restrictions were starting to ease in 2021 to 2022, CCDC visited the community and was able to identify risks and potential.  One of the concerns of the women for their poultry and basket weaving was its lack of market for their products.

Mentoring led to the basketweavers’ realization that there is a need to upgrade the quality of its bamboo to reduce the risk of decay and rotting of its products.  The group was then led to the Department of Science and Technology for technical assistance in processing the bamboo to ensure that baskets last long.

Through the BS Entrepreneurship students and the CCDC Entrepreneurship Center adopted the Banayakoe Poultry Sustainable Livelihood Program Association (SPLA) at Banayakeo, Atok, Benguet.  Its members are from the low-income group. Thus, this is an opportunity for them to improve their living conditions. However, the enterprise faces challenges that hinder it from flourishing in business. With the project, student-entrepreneurs were tasked to help the enterprise, particularly in marketing.  

Through the Project Aloyon (local term to mean, helping voluntarily), which aims to empower and capacitate community-based enterprises to be successful,  Banayakeo poultry producers were able to sell their products and were able to meet potential outlets for their produce.  To date the Banayakew Poultry producers were able to pay their debt from the government and continue to enjoy training and mentoring by the CCDC Entrepreneurship experts to improve packaging, and enhance bookkeeping skills.

In the future, the project aims to capacitate the members of the association with entrepreneurship through training, mentoring sessions, etc. With this, members will be inculcated with an entrepreneurial mindset and be equipped with the competencies needed to operate a business.  Empowering the people in the enterprise can lead them to their success. 

The Banayakeo Poultry SPLA serves as one of the many forces that drive CCDC to further strengthen community extension programs. CCDC hopes that it will be one of the rugs to riches story, may it serve as an inspiration to aspiring entrepreneurs to pursue their entrepreneurial journey.