Purok Pinya sells vegetables to earn

PLANTING vegetables, selling the produce to the residents was one way Purok Pinya earned and grew.

The 97 families adopted the purok system under the eGwen  program to turn their purok or sitio; which was once a slope where cogon grass grew, to an avenue of participation and the center of livelihood in the community.

The residents joined hands cleared the slope, set up vegetable gardens and a plant nursery, said Sergia Jumadla, the president of Purok Pinya.

They were provided seedlings by the Liloan town government, which was part of the eGwen or expanded Green and Wholesome Environment that Nurtures program of the Cebu government and the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. (Rafi).

They grew eggplant, camote tops, malunggay,  kangkong, gai (spinach), beans, okra, sweet potato and ube in their vegetable garden. They also raised livestock such as goats, chickens and hogs. Today, the residents harvest their vegetable produce thrice a week with the produce sold to the residents at cheaper prices.

Jumadla said this was a way for the Purok to earn and for the resident to benefit from the vegetables that they planted.

A bundle of malunggay are sold at P2, a kilo of pork from their livestock program are sold at P145, a kilo of sweet potato can be had for P20.

“We sell our produce at a cheaper price so that everyone can afford and benefit from it. And through this, the residents won’t have to go to town to purchase this products,” said Jumadla in Cebuano.

She said the income from the sales would be used to maintain the purok. She recalled the lack of funds when they started to develop the purok a couple of years ago. The residents contributed P5 pesos a week to generate funds so that the livelihood and the other projects in the Purok under the eGwen program  could take off.

These projects include a material recovery facility, and a vermi compost area.

Purok Pinya recently was chosen as the 2012 eGwen grand champion besting 55 other puroks in Cebu province and won a P350,000 cash prize.

The winning purok under the program was judged according to cleanliness, health, sanitation, environment, culture and heritage promotion, and good governance

Jumadla said they would use the money to improve the livelihood program of the Purok such as its swine fattening and swine dispersal project./contributor Christine Estrella