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2 Leadership Lessons From Apayao Women – Help Yourself By Helping Others

In the 820-word story by Kathleen Faye B Agonoy of SAAD Apayao titled “Rural Women-Led Communal Gardening In Celebration Of National Women’s Month[1]” (29 March 2021, SAAD.da.gov.ph), I see 2 lessons in leadership.

I see them, after reading 5 times, what with the original Ilocano words included, and as an Ilocano myself I had to check the accuracy of the translation. And the leadership lessons are:

(1) Self-help: Look for leadership in someone who wants to help herself first of all (“tao nga kayat na metlang nga tulungan iti bagi na”).

(2) Communal interest: That chosen leader can then convince others to join in a community project with this assurance: “You help yourself by helping others!”

The Apayao communal gardens are in Poblacion, Imelda, Alem, San Luis (PIAS), owned by the PIAS Farmers Association (PIAS FA). I note with interest that the association is registered at the Department of Labor & Employment as a cooperative. Personally I believe in the power of cooperatives to collectively change members’ lives much for the better.

The slogan for all cooperatives should be, borrowing from the Three Musketeers of Alexandre Dumas: “All for one, one for all!”

As of March, there are 198 members of PIAS – 121 women and 77 men. The communal gardens are about 100 sqm each barangay.

Group member Leonora Lucero has a leadership take on PIAS. Interviewed by Miss Kathleen, “She stated that the program was a mentoring ground for women who want to take lead in shaping the future of agriculture.” Thank you, Miss Leonora, for this leadership lesson!

The Special Area for Agricultural Development (SAAD) Program supports PIAS FA. For vegetable production, PIAS received in June 2019 from the SAAD Program rain shelters costing each P159,150. Barangay Imelda received 3 rain shelters, 5 knapsack sprayers, 8 shovels, and 18 seedling trays. Smaller Barangay Alem received 2 shelters, 4 sprayers, 5 shovels, and 13 trays.

Miss Kathleen quotes Miss Leonora as saying:

Idi awan pay tuy rain shelter, sakam lang makamula nu tay dry season ta nu pinatagtutudu metten ket agnanayun nga maperdi tuy mula mi ta malungsot da gapo iti tudu. (Before there was this rain shelter, we could plant only during the dry season, because during the rainy season, our plantings were always destroyed, rotten by the rains. – My translation)

Miss Leonora is happy. She says:

Idi ada tuy project’n, han min masapul nga gumatang iti nateng nga agserbi pamilya mi ta da meten idi continues nga pagmulaan mi kin pag harvest’an mi. (When the project arrived, we no longer needed to buy vegetables for our families because we already had a place to raise and harvest them. – My translation)

PIAS FA President Mercedes Pechon says they also supply vegetables for free to the families of 2 malnourished children.

The wealth of vegetables comprise eggplant, okra, chili, bitter gourd, bottle gourd, sponge gourd, tohya beans, dasheen, pechay, and tomato – a minimum of 10 kg each planting produced each week from May to June.

These Apayao women prove:
Where there’s unity, there’s wealth!@517


[1]http://saad.da.gov.ph/2021/03/rural-women-led-communal-gardening-in-celebration-of-national-womens-month/?fbclid=IwAR3S2wSH-q7IJFlKBziZsbJcfid6QsPbknFD2sHDW4p-61-of1-Vbriq6Ok

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