Cartier’s Women’s Initiative Award Winners are announced from around the world.
As reported by Star2.com
Even as a young girl growing up in the Philippines, Carmina Bayombong was aware of how painfully difficult it was for children from poor families to go to university.
Banks would not give them study loans because they didn’t have credit scoring and their parents had no fixed income.
Bayombong’s parents, who struggled to put themselves through university, had set up a cooperative in their village to provide education loans for disadvantaged children.
“At first, I didn’t understand why my parents would lend money to people they didn’t know. They explained that the loans gave people opportunities.
“I still didn’t really get it until I was in university and saw many of my friends drop out because they couldn’t afford the fees or were failing as they were too tired from working part time to fund their education.
“It costs about US$1,200 (RM5,000) a year to go to university in the Philippines but it is almost impossible for students to get funding. I couldn’t understand why it was so difficult … why do students have to jump through so many hoops to get an education,” shares Bayombong.
So, the industrial engineering graduate decided to set up InvestEd, an online education loan platform for undergraduates in Dec 2016.
In a little over two years, InvestEd has become the Philippines’ leading provider of education loans and boasts a 100% repayment rate.
“InvestEd matches lenders with students dreamers – that’s what we call our borrowers. We make it less risky for lenders and also for our students whose lives are basically at risk if they don’t get an education,” she explains.
InvestEd has helped over 300 students go to university and their graduates are employed an average of 27 days upon graduating.
“That’s higher than the national average of 130 days!” says Bayombong, with pride. “Our students don’t see us as a company but more as an elder sibling: if they have problems repaying their loan, they’d come to us and we’d work out a solution. We include our student dreamers in our organisation.
“All our graduates go on to mentor our undergraduates and that is really a beautiful thing because having a mentor who comes from the same background is priceless.
“About 41% of our borrowers are the first in their families to go to univeristies. They are their families’ golden ticket our of poverty and that’s really the end goal we want,” she explains.
Earlier this month, Bayombong won the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award at a ceremony at the Fort Mason Centre for Arts and Culture in San Francisco, the United States that was attended by, among others, Academy Award winning actress Lupita Nyong’O and award-winning journalist Maria Shriver.
The Cartier Women’s Initiative Award, which was incepted in 2006 by luxury brand Cartier and Insead Business School, recognises women entrepreneurs around the world with businesses that have a tangible social impact.
Bayombong was chosen as the laureate for South Asia and Ocenia and was one of seven women to receive the award which comes with a cash prize of US$100,000 (RM420,000), a scholarship to attend the Insead social entrepreneurship executive education programme as well as business mentoring and coaching for a year to support the further growth of their businesses.
Bayombong, who was one of three finalists from South Asia and Oceania, was thrilled to be chosen as a laureate.