The impact of microfinance on the livelihood of fruit vendors in the municipality of Bansalan, Davao del Sur, public market

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the impact of microfinance in the livelihood of fruit vendors in Municipality of Bansalan, Davao del Sur public market. It tried to capture the various experiences and opinions of microfinance program contributors in the said Municipality. There were 55 survey questionnaires that were given to the overall population of fruit vendors, the quantitative non experimental design of research using descriptive technique was used in the study. The respondents of the study were 55 fruit vendors in which 80% of them were female and 20% were men. Results revealed that the level of perception on the impact of microfinance in the livelihood of fruit vendors when analyzed by sex were very highly satisfactory. It shows that there is no significant difference in the impact of microfinance on the livelihood of fruit vendors in Bansalan, Davao del Sur public market. But even the results did not yield a significant difference, the researchers concluded that microfinance still serves as an important factor in the livelihood of fruit vendors in Bansalan, Davao del Sur public market. When analyzed according to their sex in terms of income, savings and poverty alleviation, it still gave a positive impact that will possibly make their lives convenient most especially on women fruit vendors. The researchers made a certain recommendations that the fruit vendors must learn more how to invest for themselves to improve their situation and learned to manage money to actively educate about personal finance because as what warren buffett said in an interview at CNBC “Anything you invest in yourself, you can get it back ten-fold times and nobody can steal it from you”. With this, fruit vendors can now be able to begin a business not only depending on microfinance.