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| Rabia Mangumpig, wedding gown designer, gives a short speech during her Bayan Academy graduation. Having worked as a seamstress in Saudi Arabia with little to show for it, she encourages Filipino parents to do business in the Philippines rather than work abroad. |
“It’s good to do business in the Philippines!” said Rabia
Mangumpig in an impromptu speech at her Bayan Academy graduation on April
12. Rabia is a wedding gown designer and CCT microfinance community
partner from Cotabato. She attended the Citi Microenterprise
Development Center Program, an eight-day entrepreneurship and management
course, as part of her prize as regional winner for Mindanao in the
2012 Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year (MOTY) Awards program.
She also received one-on-one coaching on 'Ways to Master Your Personal Business' as part of the course.
After working for six years as a seamstress and master cutter in Saudi Arabia, Rabia came home to raise her family and to set up her own business in 2005. She says being a micro entrepreneur in her own country is much more rewarding than being a contract worker in a foreign land. "Besides, I am able to be with my family the whole time," she says.
The gowns she sews are accented with inaul, a special kind of cloth handwoven by Magindanaoans. Not only does she sew wedding attire for Muslim brides and their entourages; she and her husband also provide wedding packages that include invitations, videos, cakes, flower arrangements, and matrimonial bed sheets, pillow cases and wooden beds.
Rabia hopes to use knowledge gained from the course to improve and expand her dress shop which has branches in Awang, Maguindanao, and in Pagadian City.
She has been a community partner of the Center for Community Transformation Savings and Credit Cooperative since October 2008.
She also received one-on-one coaching on 'Ways to Master Your Personal Business' as part of the course.
After working for six years as a seamstress and master cutter in Saudi Arabia, Rabia came home to raise her family and to set up her own business in 2005. She says being a micro entrepreneur in her own country is much more rewarding than being a contract worker in a foreign land. "Besides, I am able to be with my family the whole time," she says.
The gowns she sews are accented with inaul, a special kind of cloth handwoven by Magindanaoans. Not only does she sew wedding attire for Muslim brides and their entourages; she and her husband also provide wedding packages that include invitations, videos, cakes, flower arrangements, and matrimonial bed sheets, pillow cases and wooden beds.
Rabia hopes to use knowledge gained from the course to improve and expand her dress shop which has branches in Awang, Maguindanao, and in Pagadian City.
She has been a community partner of the Center for Community Transformation Savings and Credit Cooperative since October 2008.
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Rabia attending a lecture on
financial management.
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The winners in the 2012 Citi
Microentrepreneur of the Year (MOTY) awards program with
June Frances Hamoy of the Microfinance Council of the Philippines Inc.(MCPI). Left to right: Abella de Dios, Floraiwin Cainglet, Rabia, Milagros Hiyas, Marilyn Fajardo, Leniflor Ico.
MCPI is the organizing body of the MOTY
Awards.
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Rabia (4th from left, front row) with classmates at Bayan Academy, micro entrepreneurs like her
and clients of micro finance organizations such as Kasagana Ka,
Ahon Sa Hirap, Tulay sa Pag-unlad, and Uplift.
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| Rabia and classmates. Of this group,
Rabia traveled the farthest, flying in from Cotabato four times in March and April to attend the sessions at Cinderella Bldg, EDSA, Quezon City. Her airfare and hotel accommodations were all covered by her prize as a MOTY winner. |
