DTI-6 to provide free entrepreneurship training, business counseling
Good news! To those who are interested to become new entrepreneurs, the Department of Trade and Industry Region 6 will provide free entrepreneurship training and business counseling services through “A Responsive and Innovative Strategy for Entrepreneurship” or ARISE.
Regional Director Dominic P. Abad said the program, which will simultaneously be launched on January 26, 2009 in all the DTI Provincial offices, 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.
The realization of the program can be achieved through the implementation of its four components.
1) Basic Entrepreneurial Training. A half day free entrepreneurial training with a standard module will be conducted per week by all the provincial offices starting January 27, 2009. To ensure that many will attend, the DTI will reach out to the community through the private sectors, academe, line agencies, Local Government Units and other groups or association. A separate training will be scheduled in the municipalities and cities to fully extend the services of the program down to the municipal level. To inspire participants to go into real business, successful practitioners will be invited to share their experiences and discuss attributes of successful entrepreneurs.
2) Business Idea Generation. After the conduct of the training, specific business ideas will be elicited from the participants based on their abilities and preferences. Successful entrepreneurs will be invited to share their experiences. For those who have no idea yet on what to start, they would be provided with the list of businesses and livelihood opportunities that they can engage in. Linkage with the local chambers and business organizations will be made for additional business information that they could share like sub-contracting opportunities and other tips.
3) Specific assistance. For those who have identified the business that they want to venture on, they will be further trained on the tested entrepreneurial development and business counseling programs in the four areas of business such as marketing, production, organization & management, and finance. For Marketing, consultancy services, product pricing and costing, market linkages and participation to trade fairs will be done. For production, skills training, technology transfer, productivity seminar and inventory management system will be provided. For Finance, if they need financial assistance, they will be linked with financing institution like Taytay sa Kauswagan, Small Business Corporation, and DBP, among others.
The DTI will be closely working with the Business Development Service providers (BDS) and involve other agencies on this program especially members of the SMED Council like TESDA, DOST, and DA. A kit containing the Service Guide of DTI and other agencies, Guide on how to prepare a Business Plan, and Financing programs for MSMEs will be provided for each participant. Entrepinoy tapes may also be shown to those who are interested to start-up a particular project.
4) Monitoring and Evaluation. This will be implemented to determine the progress of the participants as well as the additional support needed.
The move of the local DTI is in response to the call of DTI Secretary Peter Favila to create an emergency employment and livelihood projects which focuses on helping people especially the jobless start small businesses. In this way, jobs will be created which means more income for people in the countryside to pump up the economy. For more information about ARISE visit the nearest DTI provincial offices in your area. (Ruby M. Melliza/DTI-6)