MasterCard supports women empowerment through Project Inspire 2013

MasterCard recently launched the third edition of Project Inspire: 5 Minutes to Change the World, and awarded an additional USD25,000 grant to past Grand Winner Hapinoy, as a renewal of its commitment to women empowerment.

Co-organized with UN Women Singapore, Project Inspire is a digital and social media driven program that encourages young people across the world to empower disadvantaged women and girls in Asia/Pacific, the Middle East or Africa (APMEA). This year’s winner will receive a USD25,000 grant from MasterCard.

Leading the event is MasterCard Worldwide Georgette Tan, group head of communications, APMEA, who said, “This project is a tribute to the women who put the needs of their children, husbands, families and communities, ahead of themselves. These women’s goals are to take care of their families by putting food on the table and having access to medicine, ensuring that their children go to school and to augment their husband’s income. And as a result of their economic empowerment, these women gain self-confidence.”

She is joined by MasterCard Philippines vice president for marketing and client relations Judith Dayrit, who welcomed the attendees, including Hapinoy’s co-founder and president Mark Ruiz, executive director TJ Agulto, and managing director Erika Tatad.

Ruiz recounted the Hapinoy story, and shared, “Hapinoy was founded in 2006 out of the desire to tap the sari-sari store industry, which is the humblest of businesses but has so much power,” he explains. Through the Project Inspire grant, his team was able to roll out a scalable microentrepreneurship training program, which allowed them to reach out to more ‘nanays’. Today, Hapinoy’s listed beneficiaries are up from 2011’s 100 to today’s 1,300, and there are now 7,000 stores under its network found all over the country’s South Luzon area.




Also present were Hapinoy nanays Maribel Tolentino, Joy Sallan, and Marina Reyes, who shared the good business practices they learned through the microentrepreneurship program, such as the conscientious recordkeeping, the ‘first in, first out’ principle, visual merchandising, and setting limits to the customers’ credit line.

For Project Inspire 2013, MasterCard welcomes more of such transformative and sustainable ideas to support women empowerment. Interested participants are encouraged to visit www.5minutestochangetheworld.org to know more about Project Inspire 2013. The deadline for the submission of entries is June 30, 2013.