Local women’s business group launched in Guyana

Two outstanding Guyanese businesswomen, Lucia Loretta Desir and Barbara Dublin- Peterkin launched the Guyana chapter of the Women Entrepreneurs Network (WEN) last week at Roraima Duke Lodge. A release from the U. S. embassy said Desir is the managing director of D & J Shipping Service and Dublin-Peterkin is the chief executive officer of B’s Beauty & Naturopathic Centre and Visions of Excellence and Personal Development Centre.
Desir and Dublin-Peterkin represented Guyana at the Caribbean Women Entrepreneurship Forum sponsored by the U. S. Department of State in Washington, DC in March 2012. Following the forum, they joined with Caribbean counterparts to establish the Women Entrepreneurs Network Caribbean (WEN Caribbean) last year. The Guyana chapter is now part of this broader regional network.

Women’s entrepreneurship
Building upon the success of this Caribbean Women’s initiative, President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched the Women’s Entrepreneurship in the Americas (WEAmericas) initiative at the Summit of the Americas in April 2012. WEAmericas leverages public-private partnerships to increase women’s economic participation in Latin America and the Caribbean, by reducing barriers women often face in starting and growing small and medium enterprises. These barriers typically include access to training and networks, to markets, and to finance.
U. S. Ambassador to Guyana D Brent Hardt underscored the critical role of women in economic and societal development during his feature address at the March 22 launch. The ambassador emphasised that “investing in women is not only the right thing to do, but also the smart thing”.
He pointed out that investment in women-owned small and medium sized enterprises is “one of the best ways a country can achieve lasting economic, financial, and social impacts”.
Research has demonstrated that women-owned small business enterprises can be significant accelerators of economic growth, as women tend to spend more of their earned income than men, on the health and education of their families.
Human Services and Social Security Minister Jenifer Webster in her remarks observed that “the role of a woman is such that empowering every woman not only affects the individual, but also the family unit, the community, the society and the nation as a whole. As a matter of fact, women’s empowerment must be seen as a catalyst for growth and diversification of Guyana’s economy.”
Following their participation in the Caribbean Women Entrepreneurship Forum and the launching of the wider sub-regional and hemispheric women’s networks, Desir and Dublin-Peterkin have developed a network to share their experiences and knowledge to empower more Guyanese women entrepreneurs committed to growing their businesses at the small and medium level.
WEN seeks to strengthen the voice, visibility and viability of women-led businesses in Guyana and the Caribbean through advocacy, training, networking, and identifying and sharing best practices and resources in support of entrepreneurship development among its members.
Desir described the launch of the Guyana WEN chapter as “a tribute to the success of the ongoing relationship between Guyana and the United States of America and… to the interest which the United States continues to play in the development of Guyana.”
She saluted the central role played by former U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, observing that WEN’s launch reflected her commitment to women’s economic empowerment.
Desir said at the Washington forum that women entrepreneurs were connected to tools and resources made available by the United States to support women in business.
“Our responsibility”, she explained “is to harness those tools for the growth and development of women in Guyana”.
She also noted that the Caribbean Women’s Entrepreneurship Network (CWEN) has an executive which is coordinating activities throughout the region, including recruiting new members and sensitising public and private sector agencies to the advent of CWEN, and launching the organisation’s website at the wencaribbean.org.
Since the WEAmericas launch in April last year, partners have made significant progress in reducing the barriers preventing women entrepreneurs from thriving. Through WEAmericas and other regional initiatives such as WENCaribbean and now the Women Entrepreneurs Network in Guyana, the U. S. government is actively working with partners from the public, private, and non-profit sectors to promote economic opportunity and social inclusion for women entrepreneurs.