Project AWESOME

In collaboration with Lutheran World Relief (LWR), Project AWESOME is implemented in Northern Cebu, specifically in the municipalities of Bantayan, Santa Fe, Madridejos, and Daanbantayan, where the intervention is focused on the women in the fishing communities. These women, having the responsibility for domestic care, are limited to engage in paid work and other entrepreneurial activities.

Looking at the opportunities in the areas, Bantayan Island is rich with resources such as pristine beaches that attract increasing number of tourist arrivals daily. The hotel accommodations, tourist attractions, and enterprises already operating in the areas also present a bounty of opportunities for job generation for women. However, various challenges need to be addressed to increase the capacity of the women on economic resilience.
The project was able to directly benefit 2,185 women through the conduct of various interventions such as: skills and enterprise development training on the Tourism Value Chain, business and organizational strengthening, facilitation of access to market, finance and other business development services through public-private partnership, capacity building on Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, and trainings on the use technology and communications to improve productivity and income of women-owned enterprises in accessing and disseminating market information, and other financial services.

AWESOME sees greater opportunities for women to influence the tourism development in Northern Cebu by giving them equal representation and participation in trainings, employment and enterprise development, agenda setting, policy formulation, planning and budgeting, and decision making.