Guyanese women last Saturday joined together for the seventh annual Vital Voices Global Mentoring Walk, part of a global movement to inspire a rising generation through mentorship.
Held on International Women’s Day and sponsored globally by Bank of America, the mentoring walk convened established women leaders and emerging women leaders to walk together in their community. According to a U.S. embassy release, the event in Georgetown was one of more than 40 mentoring walks taking place around the world, as part of a global movement to highlight the importance of women’s leadership and to accelerate the impact of women leaders through mentoring. As they walked, women discussed their professional challenges and successes to establish a mentoring relationship.
Global Mentoring Walk
The Vital Voices Global Mentoring Walk provided an environment for aspiring women professionals to gain the support and guidance that they need to fulfil their goals. Mentoring is proven to be one of the most important steps to establishing a successful career.
It is a particularly effective support system to help overcome the obstacles to career growth that women commonly face in corporate and professional environments, such as experiencing the “glass ceiling” effect. Equipped with the advice and support of a mentor, female professionals are better able to navigate the professional challenges they face.
Naturopathic practitioner and entrepreneur Barbara Dublin-Peterkin organised the Global Mentoring Walk in Guyana and served as the flag bearer. Several high-level participants were invited to make remarks, including representative for Human Services and Social Sector Minister Jenifer Webster, Empretec Guyana Inc Programme Manager Karen Raphael, Management Consultant and Entrepreneur Sheree Baron, and Women Entrepreneurs Network (WEN)Guyana Co-Chair and Entrepreneur Lucia Desir.
Last March, Dublin-Peterkin and Lucia Desir launched the Guyana Chapter of WEN. Desir is the Managing Director of D & J Shipping Service and Dublin-Peterkin is the CEO of B’s Beauty & Naturopathic Centre and Visions of Excellence 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).
The Guyana Chapter is now part of this broader regional network. Dublin-Peterkin and Desir have since been working to develop 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.
U.S. President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton originally 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, networks, markets, and finance.
