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“Small but terrible” — this idiomatic expression is one that would describe Mary Grace Bayalas. A woman with a small figure but with a terribly big heart of service for others, Grace is a 29-year-old midwife-entrepreneur from San Fernando, Cebu; the fourth of nine children, Grace has become one of the breadwinners of the family as she supports her three younger siblings to school. 

Although still in her 20s, Grace has long dreamt of putting up her own birthing clinic in the community where such service is scarce. This became temporarily forgotten when she decided to work for a renowned watch manufacturing company immediately after graduating high school. However, she was not accepted because she did not meet the height requirement; little did she know that something greater and bigger was in store for her. 

She then decided to pursue midwifery in 2011 and was able to pass the licensure exam in her first try. She worked at a birthing clinic in Balamban, Cebu for a few months before she decided to go back to San Fernando and pursue that lifelong dream of putting up her own clinic. 

In 2012, Grace found a shabby property along the Poblacion where she was able to establish a birthing clinic of two beds. In the first few months of her clinic’s operations, Grace was just a one-woman team. From the delivery of babies, making the necessary reports, ensuring the operational efficiency of the clinic and even down to the cleaning of the establishment and washing used bed sheets and equipment — she did it all on her own. However, the physical strain and exhaustion was not the only challenge Grace had to face in the early years of her clinic’s operations. 

She had been a subject of discrimination as some people doubted her capacity to deliver babies due to her being ”young, inexperienced and short.”

“I was 22 back then – ‘young and short’ and I heard people ask if I am even able to handle my patients well.” Grace narrated.

There were times when patients go to her clinic for pre-natal check-ups and then be surprised and doubtful when they see her. However, this did not stop her. At one point, she took photos of her patients with their healthy babies and put up a “Mother and Baby’s Wall of Fame.”

From then on, people who visited the clinic began to trust her ability and she was able to build her reputation as a good and reliable midwife in the municipality. Not long after, she had to request her landlady to rent out the neighboring space to her for the extension of her clinic — adding five (5) more recovery beds for her patients. She even had patients coming from the neighboring towns of Carcar and Naga despite the presence of other birthing clinics in those areas. She now has three (3) midwife staffs in the clinic — one of them being her sister — with her father as the driver of the clinic’s ambulance. 

In 2016, Grace ventured into another business by putting up a General Merchandise in Brgy. Bugho, one of the far-flung and mountainous barangays of the town. She came up with this idea when she learned that people from this barangay had to spend about Php 100 for the fare going to the center as there were no merchandising stores available within the barangay.

“Instead of spending P100 for the fare, they can use this instead to purchase goods from a nearby store.” Grace said.

That same year, she joined RAFI Micro-finance, Inc. (RMF) which enabled her to further increase the number and variety of products in her store. 

Having this heart to help was not something new to Grace as she was an active midwife volunteer of the Eduardo J. Aboitiz Cancer Center of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. (RAFI-EJACC). She joins the team in conducting Free Breast and Cervical Screenings for women in poor communities. In exchange for her voluntary service, RAFI-EJACC sponsors her own Free Breast and Cervical Screenings in San Fernando every year in June.

Aside from helping the women in the community, Grace’s positive performance as an RMF client made her as one of the nominees of the nationwide search for the Youth Microentrepreneur of the Year of the Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards (CMA).

The Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards (CMA) is a nationwide search for outstanding microentrepreneurs in the Philippines. Funded by Citi Foundation, the CMA program was launched in 2002 as part of the celebration for Citi’s 100th year in the Philippines. The awards program is a partnership among the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Citi Philippines, and the Microfinance Council of the Philippines, Inc. (MCPI). 

For this year, Mary Grace Bayalas won the coveted award as the Youth Microentrepreneur of the Year, the first-ever RMF client to win it, as she imbibes RMF’s heart to serve those who are marginalized and vulnerable through businesses that are more than just for profit — but also for improving people’s quality of life. 

It can now be told that her dream has become her life’s mission, which she does with so much passion.

RAFI Micro-finance, Inc. (RMF) celebrates its 20 years of elevating the lives of Micro-entrepreneurs. RMF is a program of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. (RAFI) that provides the vulnerable and disadvantaged with comprehensive financial services that enable them to have a stable and rewarding means of livelihood to elevate their quality of life.