WorldRemit, a leading digital cross-border payments business has announced the winners of its recent Grainsmart store franchise promotion to help customers give their beneficiaries the opportunity to start a business in the Philippines. Customers qualified for the promotion by sending money to the Philippines and nominating a beneficiary of their choice. The winners include frontline healthcare workers and teachers from a number of countries including the United Kingdom, Norway, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States. Beneficiaries will now be opening Grainsmart stores across the Philippines in places which include Cebu, Davao, San Carlos and Tagum City.
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“We’re so pleased to give recipients this great opportunity to start a business that will help them to support their families and become more financially stable. The franchisees have the option to expand these businesses and potentially create job opportunities for members of the wider community. This underlines our commitment to helping Overseas Filipino Workers to support those dearest to them back home,” said Earl Melivo, Country Director for the Philippines at WorldRemit.
Benjamin Batac, CEO at Grainsmart added, “It’s an honour to partner with a company like WorldRemit that shares our values. With many of the franchise contracts already signed, this promotion will create sustainable jobs and also give much-needed support to Filipino farmers, many of whom are facing challenges due to the pandemic and recent natural disasters”.
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Winner Emilie Ann Estavas who works as a healthcare assistant in a care home in Oxfordshire said, “I’m very happy and excited with the prize and so grateful to WorldRemit and Grainsmart. It is really a surprise. The Pangkabuhayan package will help my family back in the Philippines to start a business which is a huge blessing and a big help. It is a great opportunity and I’m planning to expand the business while we are here still working abroad. I am hoping and praying that God will bless the business and make it prosper so that in the near future it will help us to retire early, go home and continue running the business with my family. Fingers crossed!”.
Winner and frontline worker Melissa Zibas has chosen her cousin Adan who lives in San Carlos City, Pangasinan as her beneficiary. She said, “Adan is a former seafarer and is pretty adventurous like me so I know he’ll make a huge success of the Grainsmart business. We’re a very close family so I hope we can grow the business and include other members of our family. The covid-19 pandemic has really tested everyone’s lives so it’s great to start a business that will be needed by people as rice is our staple food”.
Rosa Mae who lives in Norway and is studying to become a youth worker, chose her sister Rhea as her beneficiary. Rhea who lives and works in Tagum City as a doctor’s secretary said, “I’m so grateful to my big sister for giving me this opportunity. I miss her so much now that she lives over 10,000 miles away in Oslo. Sending transfers through WorldRemit is her way of supporting and staying connected to us and now it has given me the chance to start my own business. We grew up in Davao de Oro and our parents still live there so I’m looking forward to running the Grainsmart franchise with them”.
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