Virgenia Dalaorao

Virgenia Dalaorao, who lives in the village of Nabantu-an Hills, Escalante City, Negros Occidental, is 46 years old and married to Elpidio Dalaorao who works as a dressmaker. The couple is blessed with three children who are between 19 and 23 years old and have their own families. But they are still partially dependent on their parents.

The couple works together to sustain their needs by engaging in a Tailoring business. This business has been a big help to them in raising their children and sending them to school. Their business continued to be their source of livelihood and slowly expanded but at some point, they needed more capital to continue expanding their business. This is why Virgenia joined NWTF-Project Dungganon in 1991. She used the money she borrowed to buy Ready-to-Wear clothes, sandals, slippers and other accessories to sell. From this new venture, she was able to earn more. She used the income to defray the household expenses, paid her loan installments and the rest she plowed back into the business as working capital.

As time went by, she was able to continue using her subsequent loans to expand operations of her RTW business and still continue helping her husband with the tailoring since they shared the same space in the Escalante Public Market. Since they have been in the clothing business for over 20 years, they have gathered loyal and regular customers who also bought the ready-to-wear clothes she had for sale, so the business earns a good income of approximately PHP 15,000 a month. They are able to support their extended family and have enough left over to reinvest back in the business.

For her previous loan, she borrowed PHP 18,000 and used this as working capital for her Tailoring and Ready to Wear Business. She paid all of her weekly installments on time and fully paid it within the loan term. Now she is borrowing the same amount of PHP 18,000 for her 17th cycle loan and the income from this will be used for house improvements. And they are looking forward to buying an electric sewing machine sometime soon so that they can finish the custom-made clothes faster with less physical effort than the manual sewing machine. They anticipate that having an electric sewing machine will allow them to increase their daily output and they will be able to accept more custom work, hence increasing their income capacity.

About NWTF:
In a world full of challenges, Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation, Inc. has answered the calling of not just of a few but thousands of women. Through the alleviation program, these women have progressed from earning less than a measly $1 a day, to surpassing the realities beyond their dreams. They have learned to live a life where they can finally be called honorable. This is Project Dungganon.

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