adminThe first group of 20 women left the country last weekend to explore business opportunities as well as buy goods for resale in the country.
The Bulawayo provincial development officer in the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Mrs Vaidah Mashangwa, said the five-day trip would see the women enhancing their entrepreneurial skills in order to sustain their families.
She said her ministry was facilitating the trip by assisting with transport and other logistics.
“We only offer them assistance with transport and other logistics, meaning that we facilitate their trips but they sponsor themselves in everything else,” she said in an interview.
She said the trip created a platform for women in business to explore business opportunities and share ideas on how to enhance their businesses.
“Most of these women run different businesses and as such the outcome of this trip will depend on their type of market and finances,” she said.
Mrs Mashangwa said it was her wish to see micro-finance institutions lending women loans at affordable interest rates to promote growth and development of women entrepreneurs.
She said the vision of her ministry was to see women empowered and urged them to pool their resources and start projects.
“With the little that we have, we can pool resources together and start something as we wish to see women empowered thereby contributing to the national economic recovery and growth,” said Mrs Mashangwa.
She said financial challenges were hindering the ministry from helping as many people as possible but was satisfied with the response the ministry’s programmes were receiving.
“We train a lot of people especially women and encourage them to form partnerships in their projects. Financial constraints hinder us from training as many as we would want to but as for now, the response has been overwhelming,” she said.
Online Reporter