PSHF

Jinkie (42), married to Janriel (42) and mother of three boys and three girls, has the kind of bright, shiny smile that uplifts everyone’s mood around her. The family home is a three-roomed concrete house belonging to Janriel’s parents. It is in a calm neighborhood, 30 minutes by jeepney from central Bacolod. With a jackfruit tree, three banana trees and a small vegetable garden, the place has a cozy, friendly atmosphere.

Jinkie’s positive attitude towards life betrays nothing of what she went through as a young girl. When she was six, her father, a sugarcane plantation worker, fell off a truck loaded with harvested sugarcane, and died shortly afterward. Jinkie’s mother Mercidita, always sick and becoming weaker by the day, was no longer able to care for her children after the husband’s death. She asked her employer to adopt little Jinkie. A few months later, Mercidita died, and when Jinkie was around 10 years old her new parents decided to leave her with another family. In this new environment, Jinkie was bullied and maltreated. Despite everything, Jinkie went on to complete high school, take a vocational course in cosmetology, and in 1995 she started her first job in a beauty parlor.

It was in the beauty parlor that she met Janriel, her future husband. Three years later they had their first child, and with a little baby to take care of, Jinkie left her full-time job at the parlor. From then on, she worked at home as a stylist and never went back to working in a beauty parlor. She gives manicures, pedicures, facial cleanings, haircuts, hair rebonding and hot oil treatments to three to five customers a day daily and this gives her earnings of around 2,000 pesos ($42) per week. As for Janriel, he makes a similar income from using his skills in carpentry, electrical work and gardening.

Jinkie is currently working with little equipment of her own and the rest is rented at a cost of 200 pesos per item per day. She is applying for a loan to enable her to purchase a blow dryer, a flatiron and an electric razor. The equipment will cost 7,800 pesos but her loan application is for 6,000 pesos as she will provide a counterpart from her savings.

We wish Jinkie well with her home-based beauty salon. She is excited about having a full range of equipment and thus being able improve her services to her clientele.

Robin M. Dreke

PSHF Bacolod

February 2016