Int'l Development Workers Trained on Discipleship, Governance

"I appreciate learning what a truly Christ-centered organization looks like from the top to the bottom," said a satisfied participant in the recently-concluded third Transformative Economic Empowerment (TEE) training conference, an annual gathering organized by the Center for Community Transformation (CCT) and the CCT Ka-Partner Network (CCT KN). "I learned that discipleship is about relationship and needs to be a core part of organizational culture," said another.

This year's TEE had the theme "Thy Kingdom Come" from the Lord's Prayer and brought together microfinance workers and volunteers from 12 countries. In her welcome message, Ruth Callanta, president and founder of CCT said, "I praise the Lord for the opportunity to share stories, experiences, and lessons CCT and its people have learned over the years of ministering among the poorest of the poor. It is my prayer that our week together will truly equip and encourage everyone so that when we go from here we will shine as exceedingly bright lights in the dark corners of the world where God appointed us to minister." Attendees were from Burundi, Cameroon, India, Korea, Malawi, Singapore, South Africa, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, and Zambia.

Participants spent about half of the week-long conference on exposure trips and half attending courses on either discipleship or organizational governance.  The exposure trips, meant to give attendees an understanding and appreciation of the scope of CCT work and what God has done in establishing these ministries, involved visits to a microfinance branch, three community centers, a residential school, a feeding activity, a savings group, and a factory.

The plenary sessions, break out group sessions and panel discussions on discipleship and organizational governance involved the following speakers and facilitators:

• Matthew Rohrs, Hope International director of spiritual integration 
• Todd Engelsen, PEER Servants president 
• Jesse Ratichek, Hope International technical assistance manager 
• Malu Garcia, Hope International savings circle program specialist 
• Larry Roadman, endPoverty.org chairman 
• Tammy Wang, endPoverty.org chief operating officer 
• James Tioco, Sowers of the Word Ministries executive director 
• Elizabeth Venegas, CCT Training and Development Institute executive director 
• Bertram Lim, CCT Inc. board chairman 
• Ronald Chua, CCT Credit Cooperative board chairman 
• Ruth Callanta, CCT Group of Ministries founder and president 
• Joey Bonifacio, Victory Fort Bonifacio pastor 
• Carson Tan, CCT Life and Business Mentoring Program volunteer mentor 

The discipleship course covered the Biblical basis for discipleship, encouraging examples of how CCT has integrated discipleship into its daily activities, and case studies of organizations that have excelled in discipling. The organizational governance course covered governance principles, practices and policies that guided CCT as it evolved from a single entity to a group of ministries, and issues and challenges that confronted CCT and its response to such.

The Ka-partner Network is a consortium of North American-based Christian microfinance organizations that partner with CCT – currently including endPoverty.org, Five Talents, Hope International and PEER Servants.

Other organizations represented in the conference were Christian Empowerment Microfinance (Zambia), Christian Service Society (India), Christian Action for Empowering Church and Community (Uganda), Action for Children (Uganda), Ikussasa Empowerment Trust (South Africa), and Women’s Initiative for Health, Education and Economic Development (Cameroon).

The conference was held on November 10-15, 2014 at the Tagaytay Retreat and Training Center, Cavite, Philippines.

Children cared for at the residential school for girls
in Puypuy, Bay, Laguna welcome TEE participants
with gifts of shell necklaces.

 TEE participants join a friendly football match with young men
 who used to live on the street and who are now cared for
 at the Visions of Hope Christian School in Magdalena, Laguna.  

While observing a once-a-week fellowship meeting of 
microfinance recipients, TEE attendees
 learn an action song led by a
covenant community builder, front-liner in
CCT's microfinance program.  

Brothers and sisters in the Lord -- development workers 
from around the world,
microfinance recipients, and CCT staff. 

Joey Bonifacio, CCT corporate member, discusses discipleship
and the Lego Principle.

Delegates from 12 countries learn a bit of Philippine
history with a visit to a monument honoring
patriot and martyr Jose Rizal.

CCT’s Business Mentoring Program: Also About Caring

Carson Tan, volunteer business mentor, giving a talk at the Transformative
Economic Empowerment training conference.

“Mentees don’t care about what you know until they know that you care.” This is how Carson Tan, volunteer mentor, described the relationship between mentees and mentors in the business mentoring program of the Center for Community Transformation (CCT) Credit Cooperative.

Speaking before an international group of development workers, Tan explained that mentoring in the Philippine context goes beyond plain business coaching, but involves mentoring on a personal level as well.  He spoke from experience, having been a business mentor for the past four years.

Tan, CEO and president of a water systems company, gave the talk during the Transformative Economic Empowerment (TEE), an annual training conference hosted by the CCT Training and Development Institute.

CCT’s mentoring program began in 2008 under a partnership with Sharpening Stone Australia. It has a ministry goal of mentoring and building CCT microfinance recipients who are engaged in business and helping them grow into strong Christian business people making an impact in their communities.  

According to Tan, the original approach was tweaked to adapt to Filipino culture because one-on-one sessions also involve listening to family or personal concerns of the mentee, and ministering to him or her through counselling and prayer. Mentees are microfinance recipients (referred to as community partners in CCT circles) with existing loans of P50,000 or more engaged in business other than a sari-sari store.

Mentors on the other hand are volunteers who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, a strong servant leadership attitude, more than five years of involvement in a business, and willingness to care for his or her mentee. 

The program starts off with all potential mentees attending a classroom-style series of lectures on topics that include basic business mindset and paradigm, basic business accounting and bookkeeping, marketing one’s products, and managing funds and family. 

The lectures are followed by group mentoring, which, Tan says, filters out those not committed to the program.  One-on-one mentoring – at least two hours each month – then takes place and can be held over a span of two years. Phases of the sessions cover helping the mentee understand himself as a business person, helping him understand his business and challenging him to grow it, helping him develop his dream in relation to his business, his family and his faith, and leading him and his family to Christ.   

Some 39 mentors occupying senior management roles in a wide range of businesses and industries are currently involved in the program  -- and more volunteers are being sought.

The TEE conference is hosted by the CCT Training and Development Institute in cooperation with ministry partners endPoverty.org, Hope International, and Peer Servants. This year the conference brought together development workers from Burundi, Cameroon, India, Korea, Malawi, Singapore, South Africa, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States and Zambia.

Lydia Awardee Shares Story

 Analyn Estrella shares her story before an
international group of development workers.  

"It is an honor to meet you in person,"
says Todd Engelsen, president of PEER
Servants, the Lydia Award organizer.

Analyn Estrella,  recipient of the 2014 Lydia award, recently shared a brief account of her business success with participants of the Transformative Economic Empowerment (TEE) training conference. She said, “CCT not only helped me rebuild my business after it floundered, but it also introduced me to the Lord Jesus Christ who is my business partner today.”Analyn has received microfinance loans from the Center for Community Transformation (CCT)  Credit Cooperative since 2007, is an alumna of its business mentoring program and is the hands-on owner of a bakery and pizza commissary.  

The Lydia award program is organized by PEER Servants and is named after Lydia, the entrepreneur mentioned in Acts 16:14 who used the proceeds of her business to expand the kingdom of God. Winners are microfinance recipients  who show business growth, have good payment records, are innovative and creative, have a strong impact on church and community, have potential for further business growth, and have overcome major problems in growing their business.

Analyn was chosen from a pool of 20 nominees received from partner organizations of PEER Servants in 10 countries.  She received a cash prize of $2,000 dollars with which to enhance her business.   

TEE is an annual gathering of development workers hosted by the CCT Training and Development Institute in cooperation with ministry partners endPoverty.org, Hope International, and Peer Servants.  This year’s participants are from Burundi, Cameroon, India, Korea, Malawi, Singapore, South Africa, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States and Zambia.

Analyn Estrella receives a cash prize of $2,000 as Lydia awardee for 2014. 
Also in photo (left to right)  are Carson Tan,  Analyn’s mentor
 in CCT’s life and business mentoring program; 
Rolando Estrella, Analyn’s husband;  Ron Chua, CCT Credit Co-op chairperson;
  Richard Diez, CCT Credit Co-op Growth  Enterprise Loan program officer;

 Jovy Empleo, CCT Credit Co-op regional peer servant; Jezryl Abante, 
CCT Credit Co-op team servant, and Todd Engelsen.  

Analyn and her family flanked by Carson Tan (extreme left) and Michael
Salili, CCT Credit Cooperative peer servant (extreme right). 

For Analyn’s full story, please click on this link:
 http://cctgeneralnews.blogspot.com/2014/08/ccts-analyn-estrella-is-2014-lydia.html

11 Couples Tie Knot in CCT Negros Group Wedding

Eleven couples said "I do" in a group wedding organized by the Center for Community Transformation (CCT)  Negros branch. Three of the couples are community partners in CCT's microfinance program, two are parents of pupils of the Visions of Hope Christian School in Bacolod, and six couples are children of microfinance community partners.

Seven of the couples had been living together outside of marriage for more than five years and decided to get married as an act of obedience to God.

The ceremony was officiated by Rev. Rene T. Bajalan and was held at the Mayfair Plaza in Bacolod on September 20.  This is the 11th mass wedding organized by CCT Negros since 2003.

CCT's Analyn Estrella is 2014 Lydia Awardee

2014 Lydia Awardee Analyn Estrella has come a long
way from a little girl growing up in Masbate whose
father believed it was enough that she learned to
read and write. 

Analyn Estrella, pizza maker and bakery owner from Quezon City, has been named winner of the 2014 Lydia Award.  The Lydia Award,  sponsored by PEER Servants, a Christian organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, recognizes microentrepreneurs who, like Lydia in Acts 16 in the Bible, use their growing businesses to bless their respective communities.

Childhood. Analyn grew up in one of the poorest provinces of the Philippines, Masbate. Her father was a farmer who wanted to send his daughter to just the first few years of school because he believed it was enough that she learned how to read and write. Analyn however wanted to learn much more than that. She would walk three kilometres from their home in Uson, Masbate to school every school day. She finished grade school, high school in the province, and three years of college in Manila by sheer hard work and determination.

Analyn stands in front of the oven she uses today,
 holding the oven she used when started her business.

Early Business Success. Analyn was a young wife and mother when she began making pizza in 1998, beginning with a capital of P400.00. She learned how to make the dough from an older brother who worked at Fiesta Pizza. 

When she was just beginning her pizza business, she sold it in roadside booths in bustling Quezon City. The business took off so quickly so that before it reached the sixth month she was selling 1000 boxes of pizza a day. Because she had also opened a bakery, eight men and six women, kababayan from Masbate, were hired to work as bakers, helpers, delivery boys, and salesladies. Her husband quit his job working with a construction company to help her as driver for deliveries.

Earnings allowed Analyn to purchase a secondhand Ford Fiera for P60,000 that made deliveries easier, and in 2000 she bought a six-bedroom house for P1.5M. Then in 2004, adversity struck.

Hard Times. Analyn was riding a crest of success when her mother suffered a stroke and became comatose for a month. Her mother came out of the coma but was bedridden for the rest of her life, and passed away only in March 2014. Analyn had to sell the Ford Fiera and house to cover medical expenses, her children had to move from private school to public school, and her workers had to find jobs elsewhere. She went back to baking the bread herself using just three kilos of floor a day. As a last resort she was about to also sell her bakery equipment, then a neighbour introduced her to CCT and she received her first loan of P4,000.00.

CCT Aid. The series of CCT loans she received over the next several years helped Analyn rebuild her businesses. By 2007 she was back to using 50 sacks of flour a day. But even better, she came to have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. She says, “A verse discussed in one of the first meetings I attended was Matthew 11:28, ‘Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.’ I realized I’d forgotten all about God before this. I’d been through a lot of problems. The promise in the verse was exactly what I needed and I claimed it for myself.”

The Businesses at Present. Today, Analyn makes pizza Mondays to Fridays during the school months, selling an average of 450 pizzas every school day. The 10-inch pizzas are sold at P30.00 per box to canteen concessionaires in 20 Quezon City public schools where it is sold at P5.00 a piece. 

Analyn has carefully invested her loan money in bakery equipment and furnishings (a large freezer, oven, shelving, heavy duty mixer, slicer, dough roller, working table, office tables), and in a van.

Growth. From 2007 to 2011 Analyn was part of a loan group when the size of her loans was P50,000 and below. When she started receiving Growth Enterprise Loans (loans of more than P50,000) she began attending life mentoring sessions as a mentee of Christian business man Carson Tan.

Aside from joining CCT’s mentoring program, Analyn makes the most of free training offered by other organizations as well. She learned the proper way to bake bread at a four-day seminar offered by the Quezon City government. She also attended seminars on how to make siopao and siomai and sold these items at one time. Along with about a hundred other micro entrepreneurs from all over the Philippines she attended the PinoyMe Convention in March 2013 upon recommendation of CCT. “I was very eager at that time to have my breads and pizza sold in supermarkets. One of the things I learned at the convention was that this requires a lot of documents and that it takes quite a long time to process and acquire these documents. If I attempted to have my products sold in supermarket and learned these things in the process, I might have been discouraged. I also learned that the proper way to respond to competition is through innovation,” she says

Life Changes. Running the businesses and being able to give her children something she didn’t receive from

her parents has given Analyn a profound sense of fulfilment. She shares that when she was just starting her businesses, her family lived in such cramped quarters that her children had to sleep under the table where she mixed the dough. 

Today they live in much better conditions and have enough to receive good education. Eldest daughter Ronalyn, 25, has a degree in computer engineering. Second daughter Carina, 23, will finish her business administration studies this school year. Son Rolando, 21 studied information technology, and the youngest

son who is still in grade school will be able to go to an excellent college or university when the time comes. Analyn's entire family attends one of CCT's community churches in Quezon City.  Someday soon she hopes to open a chain of bakeries in Masbate, to be able to provide jobs for her kababayan.  

Dodie Santos: Soul-winning Micro Entrepreneur and Tricycle Operator

Nanay Dodie receives 'boundary' from one of her tricycle drivers.

Nanay Dodie and her family.

Micro entrepreneur Dolorosa Santos  was named honorable mention in the 2014 Thurman Award program of Hope International, a CCT ministry partner-organization based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA.  The award is named after Eric Thurman, Hope International’s founder.  This is Nanay Dolorosa’s inspiring story. 

  

Dolorosa ‘Dodie’ Santos of Novaliches, Quezon City owns a sari-sari (retail) store, a wholesale store, a motorcycle spare parts store, and six tricycles which she rents out to tricycle drivers in her neighborhood. She has received microfinance loans from CCT since August 2005.

Nanay Dodie uses her tricycle business not just to help provide jobs for neighbors but also to bring them to the Lord.  In 2011, she began implementing a policy in which the drivers had a special privilege of paying only 50% ‘boundary’* on Sundays if they attended the 3 pm worship service at her church.  

Nanay Dodie with her youngest son. 

 The drivers protested in the beginning, but Dolorosa was insistent, saying the church service at (the Jesus Is Lord Fellowship in Novaliches) would take up only two hours of their time, and that they would have to find another tricycle operator otherwise.

 The drivers began attending church with her, reluctantly at first, but all six of them have since been born-again, and many members of their families as well! Today, Nanay Dolorosa brings as many as 100 persons to church with her. They ride the tricycles, and a van she bought (using a CCT loan) for this purpose. 

“My most fervent dreams are no longer for myself or for my family. The Lord has blessed my family beyond what I ever hoped for,” says Nanay Dodie whose family used to live in a wooden shack just a few square meters wide.  Today they live in a two-story concrete house with a roof deck.  “ We already have more than enough materially.   I want to be able to create jobs for others because I believe it is easier to lead persons to Jesus Christ when their stomachs are not empty.”  

*In the tricycle operation business, a driver may pick up the tricycle as early as 3 or 4 in the morning and return it late at night and pay the owner a 'boundary'. As tricycle operator, Nanay Dodie receives between  P310 and P360 per day per tricycle -- a higher amount is charged for newer tricycles -- and the driver keeps whatever is left as his earnings.

Photos:  Griffin Wilson 

CCT GEL Partners Get High-End Coaching

Joe Paulini, founder of the acclaimed Rainmaker ad agency and a longtime
 Five Talents volunteer, discusses a case with  micro entrepreneur
Manrie Dedoroy who runs a clothing business in Taguig.

Not all micro entrepreneurs get a chance for one-on-one discussions with seasoned businessmen or  management professors but that's exactly what several CCT community partners  got while attending a grassroots entrepreneurship management training seminar.  The objective of the training was to equip these micro entrepreneurs with the knowledge and business skills that will help them grow beyond their current micro entrepreneurial level.  Topics covered included 'planning and improving processes' and 'understanding quality, delivery, and price'.

The training was held by CCT's Training and Development Institute in partnership with Five Talents International and with the George Mason University School of Management.

The participants are recipients of growth enterprise loans (loans ranging from P51,000 to P1,000,000) from the Metro Manila and nearby provinces of Rizal, Cavite, and Laguna.)

Evelyn Fresnoza with Karen Kitching,  George Mason University School of Management accounting professor.
Evelyn  runs businesses selling fruit and fish in Laguna. 

Participants, lecturers, and CCT staff at the Tagaytay Retreat and Training Center. 

Photos by Darwin Mendoza