Creating Shared Value Report - Nestlé Philippines, Inc.

47
Ka Mila Lambio
Cut & Sew: Empowering
Women in the Barangays
Mila Lambio had been unemployed for most of her adult life as she chose
to attend fulltime to her daughter. When Nestlé put up a manufacturing
plant in Barangay Bagong Barrio, Lipa City — right where she lived, in the
early 1990s, Mila and other unemployed housewives in the neighborhood
all thought it would be wonderful to be employed in the plant as it was so
near their homes they wouldn’t have to part too far from their children.
Much to their delight, Mila and other housewives like her who had basic
sewing skills were tapped by Nestlé for a livelihood project in 1997. They
were sent to TESDA for formal training on sewing, shouldered cost for
training and sustaining capital, and awarded with a Purchase Order for
sewing jobs that helped them obtain a start-up business loan from a local
bank. Thus the Cut & Sew project was born, and the ladies soon started
doing small sewing jobs for the factory. In just two years, Cut & Sew
became an organized cottage-industry type of enterprise, with Mila acting
as community leader who oversees the operations and represents the
group to business transactions with Nestlé.