Marie Fe Lee
from La Union is a human resource management graduate (HRM) who
worked at the front desk,
where she met her Korean
husband. They got married in the Philippines but
later moved to Korea. Unfortunately, her husband
died before they had their
first-year anniversary. As
she was not yet a Korean
resident at the time, she
decided to return to the
Philippines.
A year after she
came back to the Philippines, she established
gowns and catering services. She chose this type
of business based on her
background. She also built
a sari-sari store in front of
her house because she
noticed that the space in
front was large enough
to accommodate another
source of income, especially since they are near
the road. Her gowns and
catering services lasted 11
years, but due to the lockdowns in 2020, she was
unable to find potential
customers. She then shifted in handicrafts business.
It all started when
a peddler offered her
handicraft items, which
she took and displayed
in front of her sari-sari
store. A doctor noticed the
items and became her first
customer. The doctor encouraged her to continue
selling handicraft items.
Coffee tables, trays, fruit stands, serving trays, baskets, and other household
items are among the products that she sells. Some
were made entirely of
labtang baging, while others were a combination of
labtang and bamboo.
Like the woven
products she sells, there
is one thing that binds her
business together. Like
Marie Fe, the ten families
that supply her with handicrafts are mostly CARD
Bank clients. The feedback that she heard about
the microfinance-oriented
rural bank encouraged her
to join. Now, she has been
a client of the institution for
three years. already and
she must say that it was
indeed a good decision.
She began with a PHP3,000 capital until
the business grows and
now, she already has acquired two shops. She
considered the expansion
of her shop to give more
space for her customers.
Although her income from
handicrafts is lower than
her income from gowns
and catering services, she
can say that her new business has given her peace
of mind. Currently, Marie
Fe solely manages her
business however she is
already exposing her son
on how handicraft business operates.
In five years, she
is aiming to make more
people become familiar
with her store, and she
is hoping to establish her
own name in the field of
handicrafts
