WITH a smile in her face, she hurriedly went inside the Sustainable Livelihood Office in Concepcion, Iloilo.

Maribeth Morano, of the said town, excitedly shared the information from her record book about the income she and her husband received out of -sales in fishing.

“I recorded a net profit of P18,000 in nine days!” she said with a happiness she could not contain.
Maribeth is only one of the 231 beneficiaries of the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP) under the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
Maribeth with other beneficiaries were trained on Marine Sanctuaries and Conservation. During the activity, they were provided with fishing gear as starter kit.
“Because of our earning, we paid the tuition for college and boarding house rental of our children,” Maribeth said.
Lavilla Miguel, of the same municipality, shares the joy of Maribeth.
Lavilla also shared her record book showing that within eight days, she and her husband had a fish catch of 141 kilograms making them bring a net take home amounting to P9,400.
“We used the money for household needs and boat repair,” said Lavilla.
During the training, the two women and the rest of the beneficiaries were also taught proper recording.

SLP
SLP is a community-based capacity building program, SLP increases the economic opportunities of the families through the different modalities that it offers such as skills training, seed capital fund, pre-employment assistance fund, and the cash for building livelihood assets.
It is implemented through the Community-Driven Enterprise Development Approach which equips program participants to actively contribute to production and labor markets by looking at available resources and accessible markets./dswd6/Erwina Soltis

Captions:
1. Maribeth
2. Lavilla