Villar Foundation Youth Poverty Reduction Challenge

The future of any country lies on its young generation, whose visions and dreams have always served as rays of hope for a better, brighter and more promising tomorrow.

The Villar Foundation Youth Poverty Reduction Challenge, which was launched in 2017, is a friendly competition among Filipino youth through social enterprises designed to help alleviate the poverty situation in the country.

We believe that the Filipino youth can make a difference in bringing solution to the nation’s most pressing problem, which is poverty. In the competition, ten (10) Most Outstanding Social Enterprises with existing poverty alleviation programs will be named as winners. Each winner will be awarded with P150, 000 plus a trophy.

The Youth Poverty Reduction challenge is open to at group of at least 5 young people, 16 to 29 year old college students, out-of-school youth, young professionals, social enterprise groups, group of young entrepreneurs, youth organizations and other community associations.

The entries must be having been in operation for a minimum of one year and have a bank account in its name.

Each entry shall go through rigid evaluation, comprehensive screenings and rational project defense. Entries will be judged and selected by a panel of social entrepreneurs and socio-civic specialists.

Social enterprises should focus on, among others, food or agricultural products, recycling waste materials or agricultural waste products, green inventions/environment saving inventions/green technology, water/waste/energy solutions, rural and urban innovations, information technology and livelihood development.

All entries must conform to environment-protection standards and should also address waste management measures in any give social enterprise set-up.

Criteria:

1. Originality and uniqueness, 25 percent. The social enterprises must be able to creatively demonstrate how they solve the poverty problem in their communities.
2. Adaptability or the ability of the enterprise to respond with flexibly in any given community situation, where others in the same situation can emulate/replicate, 25%.
3. Sustainability or how social enterprises address a need and eradicate/solve such need, 25%.
4. Community upliftment or how the social enterprise will help in making better the conditions of the poor and disadvantaged communities, 25 percent.

Judges will review all submitted entries and will select at least 20 entries in the Initial Screening Process. The semi-finalists will then undergo site evaluation and social enterprise model analysis and defense.

The 10 Most Outstanding entries will be picked from the list of semi-finalists. The winners will be selected based on the ratings by the Judges. All decisions of the Judges are final and non-appealable.

The Villar SIPAG office will start accepting entries starting April 15, 2024 until May 30, 2024.

Awarding Ceremony shall be in July 2024.

Application forms for the competition can be downloaded from the Villar Foundation website (www.villarsipag.org). Accomplished forms should be sent to [email protected].

AWARDS MANAGEMENT

The AWARDS Program is manage by the Villar SIPAG (Social Institute for Poverty
Alleviation and Governance), a hub of advocacies, activities and actions to help poor
Filipinos.

Empowering the poor and underprivileged has been a key advocacy of the Villar
Foundation since it was established in 1995 by its Founding Chairman and Former
Senate President Manny Villar and Senator Cynthia Villar. The Villar SIPAG plays a key
role in the foundation’s efforts to combat poverty among Filipinos.

The Villar SIPAG serves as home of all their efforts and endeavors in fulfilling their
advocacies. It is more than a showcase of the Villar’s past, present and future efforts to
reduce poverty in the country. It is a working hub and proactive center. Its name alone
highlights and promotes the value of hard work as a tool in overcoming poverty. The
Villar SIPAG will guide, train, teach and empower womenfolk, the youth, jobless and
even relatives of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to uplift their lives as well as
enhance their skills and know-how.

OBJECTIVES OF VILLAR SIPAG AWARDS

1. To recognize outstanding initiatives of community enterprises as models of good
   practices in income poverty reduction;
2. To document and share these outstanding initiatives through the Villar SIPAG
   Poverty Knowledge Management Resource Center;
3. To inspire exchange, transfer or adaption of these outstanding initiatives to other
   places in the country through action, research, capacity building, conferences
   and symposia, and
4. To enhance capabilities in reducing poverty of women, youth cooperatives,
   farmers’ organizations and local governments.

THE AWARDS SCREENING AND SELECTION PROCESS

1. The process starts with direct submission of application form and requirements
   needed from the community enterprise which shall be sent
   to [email protected] on or before November 2023 with the
   subject “2023 VSA – [Name of Social Enterprise]”.
2. Once submitted, the National Screening Committee (NSC) of the 2023 Villar
   Sipag Awards on Poverty Reduction will assess all submitted applications and
   come up with the Top 40 Community Enterprises.
3. The Top 40 Community Enterprises will be scheduled for site validation by the
   National Screening Committee. Based from the site validation, the National
   Screening Committee will choose the Top 20 Community Enterprises and
   schedule them for the Final Interview.
4. The Top 20 Community Enterprises will undergo a Final Interview wherein they
   will have a 10 minute presentation followed by the question and answer portion.
5. After the final interview, the NSC members will deliberate on their preference for
   the 20 Most Outstanding Community Enterprise who will each receive a bamboo
   trophy and cash incentives of TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND PESOS
   (P250,000.00). the cash incentives should be used to start a new enterprise or
   expand the existing enterprise.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA AS BASIS FOR DETERMINING ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS

The Community Enterprise:

• Must be at least 5 years in operation;
• Has shown significant results like increase in income of members and creation of
  jobs;
• Must be owned and managed by community;
• Has local residents as members; and
• Uses own revenues, not subsidies or grants for its core operations.

SELECTION CRITERIA AS BASIS FOR DETERMINING THE FINALISTS AND AWARDEES

1. EFFECTIVENESS – the degree to which the initiative has achieved tangible
   results like increase in household income or creation of jobs
2. SIGNIFICANCE – the degree to which the program addresses the problem of
   income poverty in a community
3. FINANCIAL VIABILITY – the degree to which the enterprise is able to generate
   its own income sufficient enough to meet its core operating expenses and
   financial obligations as well as being able to invest in its future growth and
   development
4. SUSTAINABILITY – the degree to which the enterprise will continue to operate
   in the long term; being able to balance the need to generate income at the same
   being concerned about conservation, protection and restoration of the
   environment; having the organizational capacity to continue to achieve its
   enterprise goals;
5. ADAPTABILITY – the degree to which the initiative or parts of it has been
   successfully adapted by others or shows promise of being adapted by others.