PERSONS with disabilities (PWDs) from across the country aspiring to become entrepreneurs are set to convene for a five-day business development seminar in Manila and Rizal from April 27 to May 1. About 60 PWD leaders will undergo a two-day lecture on short courses at the Bayview Park Hotel along Roxas Boulevard on April 27 and 28, said Lita Evangelista, Tahanang Walang Hagdanan Inc. Sales and Marketing director. The lectures will touch on basic bookkeeping, costing, marketing, business planning, online business, franchising and agribusiness. Resource persons, who are authorities in the fields, from Tahanang Walang Hagdanan itself, government agencies, and other organizations will conduct the two-day seminar.
Demonstrations and actual trainings on hydroponics, meat processing, trendy arts and crafts, soap-making and silk-screening will follow at Tahanang Walang Hagdanan’s base office in Cainta for three days. Select persons from the institution and government agencies will conduct the training, Evangelista said.
Representatives from the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) will also give talks, she added.
DOST Calabarzon Regional Director Alexander R. Madrigal is among the invited speakers.
The courses offered are for PWDs, Evangelista said. They can run their enterprise even without the ability to walk.
The participants in the five-day business development seminar are members of PWD organizations nationwide, she said. Most of them are wheelchair-bound, some with crutches, and others are deaf, she said.
PWDs who are not associated with any group but wish to join the business development seminar may contact Tahanang Walang Hagdanan, she said.
They can inquire, and the office will send back an official invitation to the seminar, she noted. After the seminar, the Tahanang Walang Hagdanan and its partners will help the participants who lack financial resources to source capital from government agencies, Evangelista said. They can venture in business individually or as a group, she added. Evangelista saw potential entrepreneurs among hundreds of PWDs at Tahanang Walang Hagdanan and organizations in different parts of the country.
They can harness their talents and contribute in nation-building if trained to acquire the skills and assistance they need to run their own businesses, she said.
A number of PWDs who were trained and started as skilled workers at Tahanang Walang Hagdanan, where over 200 skilled PWDs are currently employed, are now running their own enterprises, like online business, printing and water refilling, Evangelista said.
The Training on Business Development for Persons with Disabilities (particularly women) is a project of Tahanang Walang Hagdanan in partnership with the National Council on Disability Affairs, the Department of Social Welfare and Development and WowLeap. The Tahanang Walang Hagdanan and WowLeap have been helping PWDs from different parts of the country to start their own business through similar business development projects in the past several years, she said.