Media Launch of the Great Women Brand

Today is International Women’s Day. In the spirit of this very important occasion, let me share with you a story about women helping other women’s dreams come true. 

Last February 21, 2013, I had the pleasure of being invited to the media launch of a new brand of local products made by women micro-entrepreneurs. This new brand of specialty products made by local community women will soon be available in leading concept stores, mall outlets and labels of well-known Philippine designers.

This new brand called the Great Women Brand “is a new and distinct brand of up-scale food products, lifestyle goods and homeopathic care products manufactured by women micro-entrepreneurs throughout the Philippines”. This brand is actually a product of the Great Women project, spearheaded by the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) in partnership with the Enabling Communities with Hope and Opportunities Sustainable Initiative (ECHOSI).

PCW’s aim is to “promote and support a gender-responsive enabling environment for women’s economic empowerment, particularly those in micro-enterprises. ECHOSI, on the other hand, is a non-profit organization that “promotes products of local enterprise groups and converged with national and local governments to support product development and widen market opportunities for women”.

Through the project, women from seven (7) project sites in Ifugao, Metro Naga, Quezon, Iloilo, Leyte, PALMA+PB Alliance in North Cotabato and Davao del Sur, were selected to be part of the brand. Design clinics were organized to support these women in terms of giving technical advice and mentoring on value-adding for products, developing new product collection, managing the micro-enterprise, strengthening production capacities, proper packaging and labeling, and even assistance with food and nutrition requirements and technologies. 

Initially, about 2,500 women’s products applied to join but not all got accepted. It wasn’t easy to be accepted as part of this project since the aspiring women groups had to pass the ECHOSI challenge, which involves several levels.

The first level was the general assessment session of the products wherein the women were given feedback. They were given assignments to improve the products based on ECHOSI’s suggestions. Level 2 involved intensive product development and design sessions. At this point, those who did not pass the expected quality level were dropped from the project. Those who moved on to Level 3 got to be part of the Great Women Brand. Level 4 is for those niche products, wherein professional designers such as Lulu Tan Gan,  Tess Pasola and Ann Pamintuan among others, were brought in to create new products under their own labels and aligned with the GWB program. The journey lasted two years and among the applicants only 47 organizations and 20 products passed the ECHOSI challenge. 

I personally think this project is very inspiring. It has empowered lots of women by providing them with  sustainable jobs and income and has helped better the lives of their families as well. I was fortunate enough to meet three of the Great Women entrepreneurs and their stories are all very inspiring and motivating. As what was mentioned during the launch, the project is really all about women helping women go up the value chain. Even the Great Women logo, which is actually a star, espouses this. The branches on the star symbolizes branching out while the center of the star signifies the common goal of empowering women. 

Here are some photos of the various products available under the Great Women Brand.

Some of the products include the Chocolate Tablea, Powdered Ginger Brew, Mango Wine Vinegar, Dried Vegetable Noodles, Coconut Jam, Peanut Butter, Katmon Jelly, Crab paste and Malunggay Concentrate.

I have personally been able try some of these products particularly the Chocolate Tablea and the Katmon Jelly, both of which my family and I have come to love. I was also able to try the Sugar-coated Peanuts (not in photo). Those of you who follow me on Twitter or Instagram have probably seen the personal photos I’ve posted of these products.