Written by: Dr. Donnavila Marie P. Herbster
In calendar year 2025, the University of Baguio (UB) gave local community groups financial and in-kind help to start and keep up small, community-owned businesses. UB treats livelihood as one of the pillars of its UB C.A.R.E.S. extension framework. Its support goes mostly to groups that have trouble getting ordinary credit: women’s associations, solo parents, persons with disabilities, and residents of its adopted barangays in Baguio City.
The University’s approach links three things: funding (an institutional outreach fund with set budgets for each school), market access (selling and buying space on campus that brings in money for the community enterprise), and capability-building (skills training that gets beneficiaries ready to run the enterprise). This way the financial support goes toward businesses that can earn steadily, not toward one-time donations.
UB pays for its community extension work through an institutional outreach fund, with a set budget for each participating school or department. RIECO coordinates the fund. Each academic unit then carries out livelihood projects that match its field (business, hospitality, engineering) for its partner communities.
In 2025, the outreach fund supported livelihood work in UB’s adopted communities, mainly Barangay Pinsao Proper, which UB adopted in 2024 on the recommendation of the City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWDO). The Memorandum of Agreement with the barangay names livelihood as a partnership pillar and commits UB to working with local stakeholders to find economic activities and raise income through cooking and baking enterprises.
1. VIPPD Livelihood and Promotional Outreach (25 September 2025)
The School of Business Administration and Accountancy (SBAA) and its student organizations (the School of Business Student Body, JAME, JEC, JFINEX and JPIA) held the VIPPD Livelihood and Promotional Outreach at the UB Centennial Hall on 25 September 2025. It was run with the Visually Impaired Positive and Progressive Dreamers (VIPPD), a community organization of persons with visual impairment. UB gave VIPPD members a venue, promotion and paying customers on campus. Members offered massage services and sold handmade foot rugs, and JAME members sold the handwoven rugs outside the venue as well. All proceeds went to VIPPD’s livelihood initiatives and helped the group keep its community-based enterprises running.
The project is both financially sustainable (it builds a repeat market for services and products VIPPD members already make) and socially sustainable (it provides decent, dignified work for persons with disabilities, in line with SDGs 8 and 10).
2. Pinsao Proper Livelihood Pipeline: Baking and Food Enterprise (26 July 2025)
The School of International Hospitality and Tourism Management (SIHTM) held “Baking Bridges: A Skill-Building Session” at UB on 26 July 2025 for ten selected participants from Barangay Pinsao Proper, drawn from the barangay’s women’s group. Hygiene and sanitation sessions came first, followed by hands-on baking. The training was explicitly designed to add to the livelihood program planned for the participants and to prepare them for home-based and small-business food production.
Under 1.4.2, the training is the first step toward a funded community food enterprise in Pinsao Proper.
3. Pinsao Proper Livelihood Pipeline: Technical Trades (2025)
The School of Engineering and Architecture (SEA) held a Basic Welding Outreach Program in Barangay Pinsao (reported April 2025). TESDA NC II-certified trainers taught welding techniques, equipment handling and safety, and the practical uses of metalwork in construction and repairs. This gives residents a skill they can sell as a service-based micro-enterprise. SEA also ran a hands-on troubleshooting workshop for the community the same year.
4. UB G.I.F.T.S. 2025 (15 November 2025)
UB G.I.F.T.S. (Gives Inspiration, Fellowship and True Service) is RIECO’s annual outreach. It was held on 15 November 2025 at the UB Gymnasium for Pinsao Proper officials and functionaries, teachers from Lindawan Elementary and National High Schools, and VIPPD members. One of its three community-requested themes was “Empowering Women, Solo Parents, and Persons with Disabilities toward Inclusive Community Development,” which covered livelihood opportunities for marginalized sectors.
Ensuring Financial and Social Sustainability
UB’s start-up assistance is built so that community enterprises can keep running after the University steps back:
- Community ownership. Beneficiary groups (VIPPD, the Pinsao Proper women’s group) own and run the enterprises. Proceeds go to them directly.
- Skills before capital. Training in production, hygiene and safety comes before or alongside material support, which lowers the risk of the business failing.
- Market linkage. University events give the enterprises a dependable early customer base among students, employees and visitors.
- Planned handover. The 2025 activities feed into UB’s outreach and extension plan Roadmap to Resilience: 2026–2029 (ATOK). The plan moves from building foundations and partnerships (Year 1) to implementation and market linkage (Year 2), then to evaluation, sustainability and transfer of ownership to the community (Year 3).
