The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) through the Sustainable Livelihood Program  is inviting the public to visit and shop at PaskuJuan 2015, a holiday bazaar on November 29(Sunday) from 9 am to 8pm at the Araneta Gateway Food Park, Cubao, Quezon City.

PaskuJuan will feature products crafted by Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program beneficiaries from different parts of the country.

PaskuJuan is a yearly project of the DSWD to help Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries, who are also being provided with livelihood assistance through SLP, market their products.

“The success of PaskuJuan last year prompted us to institutionalize it as a yearly activity. It is one way of helping the beneficiaries market their products to the public,” DSWD Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman said.

“If you buy their products, then you are also helping them earn for their family,” Sec. Soliman continued as she enjoined the public to do their holiday shopping at the bazaar.

SLP is a community-based capacity building program that seeks to improve the socio-economic status of program participants or the beneficiaries.

It is implemented through two tracks: Micro-enterprise Development and Employment Facilitation. The Micro-enterprise Development track supports micro-enterprises in becoming organizationally and economically viable, whereas the Employment Facilitation track assists participants to access appropriate employment opportunities. Both tracks are executed based on the Community-Driven Enterprise Development (CDED) approach, which equips program participants to actively contribute to production and labor markets by looking at available resources and accessible markets.

From January 2011 to October 2015, SLP served a total of 851,505 families wherein  87 percent or 740,665 are Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries and 13 percent or 110,840 are non-Pantawid Pamilya  assessed as poor through the Listahanan or data base of poor families. ###