E&I Brief 5: SWEET Project
World Vision Development Foundation, Inc. (WVDF) together with its partner organization AIMLife Inc. has implemented the Sustaining Women’s Economic Empowerment Thrust (SWEET) project with the funding from World Vision Canada (WVC). The SWEET project primarily aims to help continue interventions focusing on economic sustainability in areas of South West Cebu after WVDF’s 20-year program life in child-focused programming and community development initiatives.
A major focus of the project was the establishment of a cooperative as scaling up to a Community-managed Savings and Credit Association (CoMSCA), and strengthening its sustainability mechanisms. CoMSCA is an economic development project model developed by WVDF that aims to provide simple savings and loan facilities to communities, especially in rural areas, where access to financial services is difficult. Aside from establishing and strengthening a women-led cooperative, there were also two major enterprises that were prioritized in this project – basket weaving and rice retailing.
Further, the SWEET project aimed to engage the former sponsored children (SC) of WVDF who are willing to give back to the community. The involvement of former SC who are now professionals is now expected to provide leadership, management and technical capacity skills to help scale up such initiatives. Overall, the project involved at least 33 active professionals or former SC representing the 33 beneficiary barangays covered across three municipalities in South West Cebu, namely Ronda, Moalboal, and Alcantara.
