Women empowered through economic self-sufficiency

By Venessa Deosaran

The ‘Venture Out for Women Programme’ officially started in 2008 as an initiative of EMPRETEC Guyana with a strategic focus for the development of entrepreneurship among women.
The programme is intended to target mostly women who are small and medium scale business owners. It was the brainchild of Managing Director, Judy Semple-Joseph. In 2010, the programme saw collaboration between EMPRETEC Guyana and Republic Bank Limited with the first group of women entrepreneurs in Regions Two, Four, Nine and Ten respectively. To date, approximately 300 participants from those regions participated in this programme where each region benefited from one set of training activities in one full day or two half-day sessions within a specified community.
This programme is designed to provide women in the respective regions with the relative tools/machinery to become fully empowered and assertive in their goal of getting out of poverty.  This empowerment exercise is done through mentorship and coaching which is intended to help build self-confidence among participants thereby promoting entrepreneurial awareness and determination.
It is expected that the development of this entrepreneurial spirit will promote positive linkages in the community such as sound business practices and an increase in their standard of living.
The main aim of the programme is to enhance the quality of life of the participants through increased knowledge and skills through a mentorship programme done by successful peers. Some of the benefits upon successfully completing this programme include: self confidence and empowerment; greater entrepreneurial awareness; knowledge of good sustainable business practices; opportunity for increased income generation; enhanced exposure and networking and opportunity for improved livelihood and empowerment thus promoting an increased standard of living.
The programme was implemented with a series of simple motivational and business support activities to stimulate within women in identified regions their interests and build their individual capacities.
It is divided into two parts: ‘motivation/empowerment exercise’ which is primarily facilitated through a mentorship and coaching exercise designed to fit the individual needs of the participants and ‘business support exercise’ which is geared towards providing practical business knowledge to participants that is relevant in business decision making.

In an interview with Guyana Times Sunday Magazine, Managing Director, Judy Semple-Joseph mentioned that women have self-sabotaging beliefs that limit their ability to grow their businesses, and some challenges, such as lack of access to capital, markets, and technical assistance. However, she believes that none of these challenges are insurmountable if these women know how to deal effectively with them. This programme plays a vital role to address this.
“Laying the groundwork for business expansion is like laying the foundation of a house, without it you can’t build a house; likewise, without a solid base for your business, you can’t build a million dollar enterprise.
“For 2012, the programme was redesigned to cater for women entrepreneurs’ needs and to investigate how further we can help. Since 2010, Republic Bank has collaborated with us because our idea of supporting women entrepreneurs actually meshes with the bank’s idea; and in that regard, they readily came onboard and support the programme. There is a workshop for 30 persons who have already registered for the new Venture Out! programme for 2012, which was conducted on June 16 in Region Four. We kept workshops in Essequibo, Berbice and Linden,” Semple-Joseph stated.
The Managing Director added that this programme has been designed to make its contribution towards the empowerment of women entrepreneurs in Guyana. (Taken from Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)