Message from the Executive Director
Sixto Donato C. Macasaet
We are pleased to share with you our Annual Report for the year 2021.
Let me share with you some highlights from the report. In the past year, we have partnered with seven new social enterprises (SEs) operating in diverse industries and sectors, and supported a total of 29 SEs through Php 149 million worth of investments.
While we continue to experience the double pressure of the pandemic’s long-term effects and a slew of natural disasters, we have been relentless in reaching more SEs in the hope of aiding in recovery, particularly in local economies.
We are delighted to introduce new women SEs under our project with Investing in Women (IW), PRIME Innov8 Manufacturing Co. and Trunk to Gold Agribusiness Corporation. Key stakeholders of PRIME Innov8 had been partners of FSSI before, and we are excited that we are able to continue this partnership and support PRIME Innov8’s market expansion under a gender investing lens. Meanwhile, the FSSI-IW support will support Trunk 2 Gold Agri in the upscaling, marketing and value creation of their coconut sap by-products and adlai trading in Misamis Oriental.
Additionally, we are supporting two more women-led cooperatives, the Kauyagan Savers Multi-Purpose Cooperative and Polo Samahang Nayon Multi-Purpose Cooperative, under our IW co-investment arrangement with the Federation of Peoples’ Sustainable Development Cooperative (FPSDC).
Finally, we are pleased to announce a partnership with We Gen Laudato Si, a next generation enterprise harnessing renewable energy through state-of-the-art solar panels. WeGen is enabling communities to shift to an affordable, reliable, clean, and sustainable energy.
In this newsletter, we also share with you updates from our face-to-face General Assembly (GA) in May, a first since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020. As part of our GA, we held a learning session on post-elections economic scenario and how social enterprises can help contribute towards an equitable pandemic recovery. As the country transitions to new national and local leadership, insights from this learning session, which we also share with you in this issue, are a good starting point on how the SE sector can tread the path ahead. At FSSI, we also welcome new Board members and officers who will guide us in continuing to achieve our strategic goals and help open up new opportunities for partnerships and collaboration.
We expect to see a changing landscape as the country reconfigures throughout the rest of the year. Along with these changes, we commit to continue working with different sectors of society in supporting and advocating for communities and the basic sectors. Now more than ever, we should continue standing together for a just and inclusive society.
