Background:
Mountain
Maid Training celebrated its 67th year of foundation, November 11
(1952-2019). Sixty seven years ago Bishop William Brasseur, CICM, DD,
asked the Good Shepherd Sisters to do a "special ministry in the
Cordilleras." The mission to the Cordillera youth started as
a boarding school for girls who needed protecton. The High School closed
in 1973, during the Martial Law years.
From a Rolling Store to a Social
Enterprise
The
sisters realized that they needed a stable source of income to feed, clothe,
care and educate over 100 girls aged 3 to 18. They realized they cannot
rely on discarded vegetables from the market, on the charity of friends and
benefactors to sustain the mission. Sr. M. Carmel Medalla, RGS (RIP 2012)
who taught Home Economics thought of making strawberry jam which was in
abundance but perishable. it was a "divine inspiration."
The sisters and students used recycled glass jars, sold the jam to friends and
asked that the jars be returned for future use. From the first product,
strawberry jam, the Mountain Maid Training Center now makes 60 products,
including cookies and breads.
Fast Forward 1976
Sr.
M. Fidelis Atienza, RGS who is now 101 years old, experimented in making ube
jam after a friend suggested making ube haleya. Tantamco is the original
make of ube jam in Baguio. Sr. Fidelis used only the best ingredients
with no artificial color. It became a "best seller."
By
the 1980s and 1990s, the ube jam became so popular that long lines of customers
and resellers waited for hours to get their ube jam. Production could not
cope with the demand.
A Case Study
In
the jubilee year 2000, the Asian Institute of Management did a case study
entitled " Inferior Resources, Superior Strategy in Helping the
Poor." Mountain Maid Training Center is considered a social
enterprise, a business model benefiting the stakeholders - farmer producers,
student workers, full time staff and customers giving them value for money for quality
products. In recent years, resellers, including those who sell on line,
have outnumbered tourists who visit Good Shepherd Baguio to get their favorite
pasalubong items.
Benefits
from this social enterprise given to the staff and student workers are over
and above what is required by law, e. g. interest free housing
loan, subsidized lunch, free merienda twice a day, subsidized
board and lodging for student workers, free uniform, free over the
counter medicines, Christmas and birthday gifts, twice a year bonus,
educational assistance and loans, value formation during paid time. etc.
Enter White Ube Jam
There
is purple ube and there is white ube. Mr. Denis Wanas, a Food
Technology scholar of Mountain Maid did his thesis on white ube jam,
white ube tarts and white ube pastillas. There is white coffee, white
chocolate, so, why not white ube jam? Mountain Maid started producing
white ube jam in November 2018. Last August, 2019, purple ube jam became
scarce and only white ube was available. The white ube
jam went viral on social media.
Mission to the Cordillera Youth
As
Mountain Maid Training Center marks its 67th year, we give thanks to God and to
those who support its mission. The Training Center accepts to its student-workers'
program youth from the Cordilleras: - Abra, Benguet, Mt. Province,
Ifugao, Kalinga and Apayao.
"You
help send us through college each time you buy our products."
Cordillera Youth.