CEM, Landbank partner in Financial Literacy Training

The Central Bicol State University of Agriculture- College of Economics and Management (CBSUA -CEM) and Landbank Countryside Development Foundation, Inc (LCDFI) through the Extension Services Division conducted simultaneous Financial Literacy Training (FLT) in various barangay in Cabusao on 22 October to 4 December 2020.

beneficiaries of the said training were from Barcelonita, Biong, Camagong, Castillo, New Poblacion, Pandan, San Pedro, Sta Cruz, and Sta Lutgarda, Cabusao, Camarines Sur.

The Financial Literacy Training was part of the Extension Program of the University entitled “Promoting Livelihood and Sustainability among Small Farmers Fisherfolks through Agroenterprise Approach.”  The CBSUA partnered with Landbank of the Philippines through their Financial Literacy Program (FLP) assisted and facilitated the training by educating fisherfolks and farmers on handling entrepreneurship financial matters. The project had a budget allocation worth P132,000.00 for training supplies, meals, travel expenses, and other miscellaneous.

The training aimed to improve the financial management skills of the farmers and fisherfolks of Cabusao by enhancing their “agripreneurial mindset” and creating a positive effect on their business performance and operations.  It also intended to initiate a change in the mindset among the farmers and fisherfolks of the town with regard to their household finance management. The ultimate goal of the project was to increase household income as well as to enhance financial literacy.

During the 10-day training, parallel sessions were conducted simultaneously in different barangays. Each session started with video presentation from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas about Financial Education as building block for stable economy.  Financial education, planning finances, managing cash flow, and investment were the videos presented during the session.

Table 1. Schedule of Training per Barangay

Simple exercise on determining the participants’ cash flow followed after the brief lecture and video presentation on Cash Flow Management.   The pandemic, typhoons, logistics and unavailability of venue affected the implementation of the training.  The simultaneous training recorded a total of 2,095 participants from the nine barangays in Cabusao.

Table 2. Number of participants attended during the simultaneous training in Cabusao.

At the end of each session, the participants gave their feedback and shared lesson learned.  The responses revolved around the need to save, budget, handle finances, prioritize needs before their wants, the separate entity concept in accounting.  “We were thankful that our community was chosen for this training- seminar. We learned about proper budgeting,” said one participant.

Participants from four barangays even suggested the conduct of other training such as livelihood training on food processing. Aside from food processing, participants from San Pedro also requested training on improving their agricultural productivity.  Similarly, participants from Biong asked for training on organic agriculture production.