Sassy Girls

A native of Atok, Benguet, Mrs. Aurora Eslao or “Auring” as everyone calls her is a quintessential entrepreneur. She balances several businesses in different places and still looking forward for business expansion.

She has retail stores – a sari-sari store and 2nd hand clothes store (wag-wagan) at Sayangan, Atok; boarding houses in Balili, La Trinidad and in Sayangan, Atok and a piggery at Puguis, La Trinidad. On top of that she helps in their vegetable farm and leads a group of women called Sassy Girls Puguis Women’s Brigade Volunteer.

But it has not always been like this. She started as a vendor at Vegetable Trading post in La Trinidad. When she stopped working at the Vegetable Trading post she only had three pigs and so she wanted to look for other means to generate income.

She learned of JVOFI microfinance and started with an initial loan of 5,000 pesos. She is now at her 18th cycle of loan with a principal amount loan of 61,000 pesos. Within these five years she was able to convert her old house into a 14 room apartment with retail stores. She now employs two regular workers in her businesses and her sons have their own cars and their own businesses.

As a leader of the Sassy Girls group Puguis Women’s Brigade Volunteer under PNP, she is active in patrolling the neighbourhood after curfew hours. She also helps in disseminating information on health awareness like alert on Dengue, she extends help financially the members of her group and stands as an advisor when her group needs help on processing important documents and gives counsel on family related issues.

She is now starting to expand her business at Sison, Pangasinan where she bought a piece of land for another piggery.