Citi Microenterprise Development Center Scholars: Photo excerpted from: philstar.comCiti Microenterprise Development Center (CMDC), a partnership between Bayan Academy for Social Entrepreneurship and Human Resource Development Inc. and Citi Philippines, recently held graduation rites for its 50th batch of micro entrepreneurscholars.

For nine days, the CMDC scholars learned the different facets of enterprise management, including self-mastery, situation mastery and enterprise mastery, as part of the Grassroots Entrepreneurship and Management course.

They will be transitioned to the Citi-Small Business Advisory and Coaching Services for one-on-one business coaching and mentoring.

Bayan Academy chairman and president Dr. Eduardo Morato Jr. thanked Citi Foundation and Citi Philippines for bringing to life their organization’s entrepreneurship education advocacy. He also acknowledged microfinance institutions, cooperatives and other institutions all over the country for believing in the power of educating micro entrepreneurs on self-mastery and enterprise development.

“Through the Citi Microenterprise Development Center, we will continue to empower more Filipino entrepreneurs and other enablers by responding to their needs to create a new entrepreneurial culture in the Philippines,” he said.

Funded by Citi Foundation, CMDC was launched as a pilot program in 2011 and has since trained nearly 3,000 micro entrepeneurs. More than half have experienced an increase of 10% in their income and almost 4,000 new jobs have been created by the scholars and their businesses.

CMDC was formed as a response to the expressed need of micro entrepreneurs to address their knowledge and skills gap in developing and growing their businesses.