Women members of the Maragondon Dragon Grass Association (MDGA) were mostly vendors selling various wares, including broomsticks, to make ends meet. Despite the hard work of the Real, Quezon residents, however, they often find themselves with few opportunities to break out of the cycle of poverty.
In 2015, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) placed the women under its Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP), a capacity-building initiative for poor, vulnerable and marginalized households and communities. The program provides viable interventions to improve the participants’ socio-economic conditions by helping them access and acquire necessary assets to establish and sustain their thriving livelihoods.
Through SLP, the women were provided with funds to start a broom-making business. Making the cleaning tool was a craft they knew but never had the resources to turn into a commercial venture.
The SLP introduced a cash-for-work scheme wherein they earned from planting tiger grass. locally known as raza, a vital raw material for making walis tambo.
The Municipal Social Welfare and Development Office saw it as the first thing they need to improve on, MDGA member Jocelyn Capablanca recalled.
By having their own raw materials for making brooms, they no longer relied on outside suppliers, which often led to delays and higher production costs.
Going forward with a steady supply of homegrown tiger grass also allowed the group to adopt sustainable business practices with support from the Department of Science and Technology.
The three-hectare field of tiger grass they cultivated is contributing to their community by preventing soil erosion.
In 2019, the 56-member MDGA won an award from the DSWD SLP’s Gawad Sibol for outstanding beneficiaries in the handmade microbusiness category. The coop received cash incentives which they used in buying P1.5 million-worth of new harvesting facility, leading to great improvements in their production of walis tambo.
Capablanca is thankful to DSWD for empowering women and changing their lives for the better.
She advised mothers like her to follow their footsteps and join livelihood groups supported by the government.
“Even if we are small people, we can do something and give help,” Capablanca said in the online documentary of DSWD, “Mga Kwento ng Pag-Asa at Pagbabago.”