Cebu, Philippines – January 7, 2013: A lady at a convenience store, often known as a sari-sari in the Philippines, on Bacalso Avenue in Cebu City, Asia.
In Prince Edward Island, Canada, a former fish plant employee is now a well-known sari-sari store owner.
Ruby Lubigan, a Filipina entrepreneur, recently received an Emerging Business Award from the West Prince Chamber of Commerce, according to CBS News. As part of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, she was profiled.
The permanent resident, who is currently employed full-time at a bank, first arrived in Canada in 2011 as a temporary foreign worker. Lubigan’s first job was working as a full-time cleaner at a high school in a rural province.
In 2018, the store began in her living room before eventually expanding and moving to a structure built on her property.
“When I left my country, I never thought, I never dreamed that I would be here in Canada,” she told CBS News. Because my situation in the Philippines is dire. We couldn’t eat three times a day because we couldn’t afford it. “There was a time when we only ate once a day.”
