PEF joins conversation on women’s role in entrepreneurship

For 20 years now, the Peace and Equity Foundation (PEF) has been supporting women-led enterprises.

At Impact Hub’s Women NOW, PEF Executive Director Robert Calingo shared that since 2011, more than 50,000 households benefitted through PEF’s support worth P71 million to 19 organizations run by women leaders throughout the country. Women NOW, a webinar about exploring programs supporting women entrepreneurs in the country, was organized by Impact Hub Manila and German foundation, GIZ Philippines.

Calingo cited women in social enterprises like Hadja Giobay Diocolano, a woman Moro leader who heads the Kadtabanga Foundation for Peace and Development Advocates, a Shariah-compliant microfinance institution in the Bangsamoro region.

PEF has also partnered with coffee-producing enterprises led by women farmers in Bukidnon and Benguet.

“Since our strategy is to use social enterprises to move households above the poverty line, we found out that there is a need to have multiple income sources to enable communities to have economic resiliency. That is what we are trying to support,” he concluded.  

Aside from Calingo, Impact Hub also invited women leaders, Reese Fernandez, President of Rags2Riches; Jerryll Reyes, Program Manager of The Asia Foundation; Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte; and Senator Risa Hontiveros.