The Department of Trade and Industry Cordillera Administrative Region (DTI-0CAR), together with the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship – Go Negosyo (PCE-GN), launched the first-ever Kapatid Mentor ME – Money Market Encounter (KMME – MME) Cordillera Youth Edition on 17 March 2021 via Zoom Video Conference platform. A total of 56 mentees across the region will be participating in the first batch which will have its sessions every Tuesdays and Thursdays from March to June 2021. The second batch will run from July to August 2021 with approximately 49 mentees bringing a total of 105 mentees for this year.

 “The Department of Trade and Industry recognizes the role of the youth and their contribution to the regional development. It is high time that we start cultivating their promise and potential, especially in Cordillera. Looking at the enormous potential of our region and the reality that most industry players are aging, we want to make the industries young and more innovative. We have high hopes that the Cordillera Youth Entrepreneurs will continue adapting to the new way of doing things, particularly in trade and industry, with the youth having the advantage of using technology, complementing the traditional way of doing business”, said Regional Director Myrna Pablo in her opening remarks.

DTI Undersecretary Blesila Lantayona seconded the need to hone the entrepreneurship skills of the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) especially the Cordillera youth, noting that they are the hope of the region.

As part of DTI’s mentoring programs, the KMME is conducted to help MSMEs scale up their businesses through weekly coaching and mentoring by business owners/practitioners on different functional areas of entrepreneurship. The KMME-MME program is composed of twelve (12) mentorship modules such as Entrepreneurial Mind-setting, Marketing, Product Development, Marketing Expansion, and Internationalization, Business Model Canvass, Operations Management, Business Laws, Taxation, Financial Management, Human Resource/Organization Management, Supply and Value Chain, Business Improvement Plan, and Culmination and Product Exposition.

For this year, the KMME-MME features youth entrepreneurs with existing businesses. With the success of the Youth Entrepreneurship Program (YEP!) conducted from October to November 2020, many youth entrepreneurs forwarded their interest in joining similar training and learning activities on how to manage and run their businesses. The participants are from Agriculture (wellness, retail, farm), Food Manufacturing (food processing), Gifts, Decors and Housewares (souvenirs, furniture), Restaurant, Café, Catering, Kiosk/Cart, Retail, Service (ICT, events, tourism), and Wearables (woven cloth, accessories) Industries. Representatives from Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Small Business Corporation (SB Corp), Department of Education (DepEd), National Youth Commission (NYC), Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, Landbank of the Philippines (LBP), and Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) in the region and in the provinces also joined the launching.

As of 2020, a total of 26 mentoring runs have been conducted in the region with a total of 636 mentees assisted, of which 580 graduated. The program has assisted a total of 3,313 micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) across Cordillera.♦

Date of Release: 22 March 2021