Coconut-based Women Entrepreneurship Initiative

Dear Friend,

Warm greetings and thank you very much for your support to our initiative providing entrepreneurship support for coconut-based women farmers. The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in so much difficulties for farming communities here and this is coupled with low prices of coconut meat which is the main product of the coconuts. Coconut meat is sold as copra or dried coconut meat to oil mills and they are processed into various commercial products. This reporting period we are happy to report that we are able to provide entrepreneurship training to 172 women farmers and aiming to explore and tap opportunities aside from the products of the coconuts. With coconut harvest once only every 3 months there is the need to explore other options for business and profits. Again thank you very much for your kind help to us.

Very sincerely yours,

Cora

Dear Friend,

Warm greetings and thank you very much for your kindness and generosity in supporting our initiative providing entrepreneurship skills and funds to coconut-based women entrepreneurs. This project is very important especially now that the coronavirus pandemic is affecting a lot of people and communities are suffering. The price of coconut meat at present is going up and this is a boon to coconut farmers depending on coconuts and hope that this will continue. In our bid to continue to provide food access to coconut-based women farmers, we focus our attention to providing them with inputs such as vegetable seeds and organic fertilizer. The proliferation of community food pantries is a good sign and we are doing this by providing seeds in various locations where women farmers (as well as men) will be able to get what they need and plant them in their own localities. We have established a total of 8 free vegetable seeds distribution centers and assisted a total of 1,200 farmers already. Hoping for your continuing help in this endeavour. Thank you very much. 

Dear Friend,

Warm greetings and thank you very much for your generous support to our initiative providing entrepreneurship support to coconut-based women and their families. Copra which is the dried meat of coconuts is the main product of coconut farmers and copra is produced mainly for cooking oil with by products used as animal feed. There is stiff competition of copra prices mainly with palm oil and coconut farmers especially women have experienced low prices since 2 years ago already. The need to guide and nurture them to be entrepreneurial assumes much significance. This reporting period we are happy to announce that we have completed the construction of a modest training center wherein local coconut farmers can be trained on entrepreneurship and local livelihoods. We were able to train also our first batch of trainees with small support from the government. We would like to scale-up this effort and train more women within the province of Misamis Oriental where we are located. Hoping for your continuing support.

Very sincerely yours,

Cora Sayre

Dear Friend,

Warm greetings and thank you very much for your generosity in supporting our initiative providing support to coconut-based women entrepreneurs. This reporting period is difficult financially for local villagers as the problem of the Coronavirus pandemic has still no end in sight. Even the remotest of village is affected as health protocols are often disregarded in the quest for villagers to earn income. During this reporting period we focus our attention to helping small-scale entrepreneurs by providing technical and fund support thanks to GlobalGiving as well as local donations that enabled us to do so. Local entrepreneurs provide materials and services in their own areas and therefore the frequent lock-downs do not affect them so much. We were able to assist a total of 25 entrepreneurs in this manner. Hoping for your continuing generosity.

Very sincerely yours,

Cora Sayre

Dear Friend,

Warmest greetings and thank you very much for your generous support to our initiative helping women coconut farmers. This project assumes great significance especially this time when the Coronavirus pandemic is still spreading, wrecking havoc to health and wellness of individuals and specially affecting those who are very poor and economically deprived. This reporting period, we scale-up our product processing and marketing effort of raw products grown under coconuts with the enrollment of one of our active leaders to an entrepreneurship course organized by the government. One of the products of the course is the consolidation of raw products that can be grown under coconut trees such as corn, turmeric, ginger and lemon grass and produce organic coffee with the aim also of benefiting directly growers of these products. At a distance of 10 square meters coconut planting, there are a lot of spaces where shade-loving crops can be grown so this line of entrepreneurship. Hoping for your continuing help and generosity.

Very sincerely yours,

Cora Sayre