Catanduanes entreps undergo DTI training

VIRAC, Catanduanes --- Twenty-five budding entrepreneurs in this island province are learning new concepts and practices from established and successful business owners in the maiden round of the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) Kapatid Mentor Me program. DTI Provincial Director Heginio A. Baldano said that up until Oct. 25, the 25 owners of micro and small enterprises would undergo a 10-week mentorship program which the DTI and the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship (PCE)-Go Negosyo introduced in Catanduanes last Aug. 25. The 25 mentees are expected to graduate by Nov. 6. Mentor Me is Go Negosyo’s coaching and mentoring project that seeks to equip micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) with the sound mindset and best practices to scale up their businesses. Meeting every week during Fridays, the participants are going through 10 different learning modules and business interventions aimed at preparing them for their integration in the value chain of bigger companies. Baldano said that under this concept, bigger companies engage the micro, small and low-income enterprises as partners, customers and suppliers in their operations not out of charity, but because it makes sound business sense. To gather expert advises from the mentors, each mentee will be given the opportunity to present his business model to a panel of mentors composed of the successful businessmen themselves. Baldano said that MSMEs are critical as this segment, which comprises 99 percent of registered businesses in the country, was seen to be the next drivers of global growth. PIA5-Catanduanes