Anything Pinoy

The Philippine Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) here is set to launch an entrepreneurship training and business counseling service program, dubbed as “A Responsive and Innovative Strategy for Entrepreneurship” or ARISE.

DTI regional director for Western Visayas said the program will be launched simultaneously in all DTI provincial offices on January 26.

It was conceptualized as a response to the call of DTI Secretary Peter Favila to create emergency employment and livelihood projects that focus on helping the people, especially the jobless start small businesses.

“This aims to promote the development of new enterprises, provide alternative sources of income for the unemployed and assist existing entrepreneurs or enterprises improve their competencies,“ he said.

The program has four components – namely basic entrepreneurial training, business idea generation, specific assistance and monitoring and evaluation.

The basic entrepreneurial training will take a half-day per week to be conducted in all DTI provincial offices. A standard module will be used for the training.

DTI information officer Ruby Melliza said separate trainings will be held in municipalities and cities to fully extend the program down to the grassroots.

Business ideas are expected to be generated from the participants during the training while those who have no idea on what business to choose will be provided with the list of possible opportunities.

After choosing their business interest, they will be further trained on tested entrepreneurial development and business counseling programs in the four areas of business namely as marketing, production, organization & management and finance.

A monitoring and evaluation will be done to check the progress of those who have already engaged in business.

Melliza added that DTI will be working closely with the Business Development Service providers (BDS) and involve other agencies especially members of the Small and Medium Enterprise Development (SMED) Council.