Interest-free loans for indigents

About 20 Cebuano indigents availed of non-interest cash loans from the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Central Visayas to fund small business ventures.

The loans worth P1,000 to P10,000 were distributed yesterday and payable in year through weekly installments.

The DSWD released P139,000 worth of checks under the program called Self-Employment Assistance Kaunlaran (SEA-K).

Dionesia Borgas, 31, said she would buy more stocks for her buy-and-sell vegetable business with her check.

Borgas said her husband’s earnings as a motorcycle driver were not enough to support their four children.

DSWD 7 Regional Director Evelyn Macapobre said the SEA-K program is a sister project of the conditional cash transfer to poor households in the Pantawid-Pamily Program of the DSWD, a poverty reduction program.

Loan beneficiaries, who are also included in the PPP, underwent training in basic business management skills last April to ensure they would be able to sustain their business.

Macapobre said benificiaries had to submit a business proposal to the DSWD for assessment to determine the amount of cash loan to be given them.

The SEA-K would later assess the status of the business to see if they qualify for another loan.

Tears Lim, Cebu city 4P’s link, said that barangay Sudlon I is the pilot area for the SEA-K program in Cebu City.

DSWD is also set to release loans to another 20 beneficiaries in barangay Inayawan, Cebu City within the month.