De Beers Group and a United Nations entity for women empowerment, UNW, launched a capacity-building programme to support 500 women micro-entrepreneurs in the province last Tuesday.
The key objective of the programme is to equip women micro-entrepreneurs with business management and life skills to build their confidence and capacity to operate and grow successful small businesses.
A media statement indicated that the programme will provide training aimed at enhancing understanding of business concepts such as accessing markets, increasing market share, generating income and communication skills. It added that the potential exists to deliver tangible results that support the entire community through the empowerment of women micro-entrepreneurs.
De Beers Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Mpumi Zikalala was quoted to have said: “In each of the areas we have selected, high levels of unemployment persist, and formal job opportunities are limited. In this kind of context, micro-enterprises provide an opportunity for income generation to support households, as well as job creation that can benefit a community more broadly. When we empower women business owners, we empower entire communities as women are more likely to reinvest a greater portion of their profits into the community and actively support the creation of jobs for others.
According to the group’s Corporate Communications Manager, Jackie Mapiloko, the capacity-building model will use a train the trainer approach whereby local trainers will be trained by the De Beers and UNW teams to offer ongoing support to the programme participants to implement skills gained, build access to peer support, and gradually reduce support from the programme to ensure self-sustenance.
Story: Herbert Rachuene
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