QC launches vendors’ ‘business school’
The local government of Quezon City on Thursday announced the kickoff of the Vendor Business School which aims to help market vendor to become responsible entrepreneurs.
In a statement, the QC local government unit said that at least 140 market vendors became the first batch for the VBS, a collaboration with the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research Resilient Cities Project.
Mayor Joy Belmonte revealed that Quezon City and Nairobi of Kenya are the only countries that implement this program.
Meantime, Market Development and Administration Department officer-in-charge Ma. Margarita Santos said that part of the VBS is the Resilient Cities Project for Sustainable Food Systems which was signed by Mayor Belmonte and CGIAR Resilient Cities led by Dr. Simon Heck.
CGIAR is an international research group whose objective is to strengthen the flow of food systems in big cities of the world like Quezon City for food security.
VBS, on the other hand, aims to give the vendors skills of entrepreneurship, food safety, market technology, how to cope with climate change and nutritional information for 10 weeks of training workshops and five-months coaching and mentoring.
Santos added that facilitators of the program have undergone rigid training from CGIAR that were selected from the MDAD, Small Business Cooperative Development and Promotions Office and Quezon City Food Security Task Force secretariat to become members of a pilot team.
One of the incentives of the program once the vendors graduated the VBS Program is their inclusion to the PangkabuhayangQC Program under the SBCDPO where a small business grant will be handed to them ranging from P10,000 to P20,000 as added capital.