If not for the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, Eileen would have pursued a business-related college course, but the unfortunate turn of events taught her and molded her to pursue entrepreneurship and became a big help to her family. Amid the lockdowns, quarantines, and decline of business opportunities in Baguio City, the story of Eileen Faith Biswayan exemplifies how a senior-high graduate and her family managed to overcome the challenges brought about by the pandemic.

Am-Ammay, the name of the Biswayan’s enterprise is a local term in Mountain Province that means delicious. Their brand is further defined in their FB page as “something built with love, hope, and hard work. It brings comfort, happiness, and sweetness in one”.

The Biswayan family was initially engaged in meat and home cooked meal selling within their community at Barangay in Pacdal. When the pandemic hit, customers became scarce due to travel restrictions, modular schooling, and decline of tourists in their area. To cope up with the lessening demands of meat products, the Biswayans explored other food items for sale. The family started to cook and sell their own recipe of suman or sticky rice with only Three Thousand pesos as capital. The brand slowly expanded their menu to cater more snack-hungry clients from the city.

Despite the initial success of their changed menu, Eileen’s hunger for improvement never stopped. With her passion and willingness to learn, Eileen got in touch with the Department of Trade and Industry – Cordillera Administrative Region (DTI-CAR).

To enrich her basic knowledge in home cooking and food-preparation, twenty-year-old Eileen joined the first Youth Entrepreneurship Program (YEP!) conducted by DTI-CAR on December 2020. Through the program, she was able to learn and interact with her fellow youth entrepreneurs, as well as business experts and key industry players who served as their Resource Speaker across program modules. This training on empowering the youth was followed by her participation in the Kapatid Mentor ME – Money Market Encounter (KMME-MMME) Online Program 2021 youth batch 1 where she received certification from DTI and GoNegosyo, the advocacy component of the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship.

Eileen also attended DTI’s One Town, One Product (OTOP) Next-Gen training on product development where she learned more about packaging and labeling. She is now looking forward to marketing their suman and rice based-cakes and pastries abroad by adopting modern methods and proper use of proven technologies.

The brand’s main product is their home-cooked suman and linapet, Cordillera kakanins wrapped with banana leaves. While their suman is likened to the “patupat” of Bontoc, Mountain Province made of Balatinao rice and coconut oil, their Linapet, which is believed to have originated in Besao, Mountain Province, has fillings of peanut and muscovado. Get a taste of Am-Ammay’s Cordilleran goodies. You may reach them through call at text at 0928 958 2483 or through Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AmammayProducts.

The DTI-CAR invites all existing and would-be youth entrepreneurs with ages 18-30 to join the Youth Entrepreneurship Program (YEP!) Orientation on 15 September 2021 via Zoom. Now on its second year of implementation, the program boasts a total of 105 graduates to date. You may register through https://bit.ly/3zmwDgI. ♦

Date of Release: 5 October 2021