Manchester’s female entrepreneurs get boost from Canada Fund

Over 30 female business owners from central Jamaica received a significant boost to their businesses through the Realize Embrace Achieve your Purpose (REAP) Women Entrepreneurship project, sponsored by the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives Grant.

The project, an initiative of the non-governmental organisation Young Women/Men of Purpose (YWOP/YMOP), provided entrepreneurship and business management training, which included introduction to entrepreneurship and business model canvas, marketing for small businesses, accounting and record-keeping, and health and wellness for the female entrepreneurs, across the parishes of Manchester, St Elizabeth and Clarendon.

Founder of YWOP/YMOP Lanisia Rhoden, speaking at the second staging of the REAP Entrepreneurship Conference held in Mandeville, Manchester, recently, said all participants had to complete the six-week training component of the project – 11 participants received seed funding.

“The ladies participated in a business pitch competition, where they pitched their businesses using the business model canvas, before a panel of judges, and 11 ladies with the top scores were selected to receive seed funding of $80,000 each to purchase equipment, tools and raw material to start or grow their businesses.”

PROMOTE BUSINESSES

As part of the project’s comprehensive approach to business success, Rhoden said the participants were also given the opportunity to promote their businesses locally to international funders and possible investors.

“The project team as well as representatives from our funders, the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI) Grant, visited some of the entrepreneurs at their business places to present the items for their businesses, and some of the entrepreneurs also had the opportunity to display their businesses at a Female Entrepreneurs Business Showcase, where they had the opportunity to meet the Canadian minister of international development, Harjit Sajjan; Canadian High Commissioner Emina Tudakovic; ministers of local government, and other members of the CFLI team.”

She said that the participants are currently being paired with successful entrepreneurs, who will be their mentors, provide tips and business strategies to help them to continue to grow and sustain profitable businesses.

Managing director of Wi Jammin Caribbean Foods and programme participant, Sashell Thomas, said that the exposure given to her business is invaluable and encouraged the efforts of the YWOP/YMOP team in strengthening their efforts to help newly formed small and medium-sized businesses.

YWOP/YMOP was founded by Rhoden as her community service project after winning the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission’s Miss Manchester Festival Queen Competition in 2009. The organisation provides career mentorship and guidance, personal development training, and entrepreneurship training and support to 13- to 32-year-olds across Jamaica. The organisation has designed and implemented projects which have impacted thousands of youths through its flagship mentoring, school outreach, scholarships, capacity development and entrepreneurship programmes. YWOP/YMOP also operates its own technology social enterprise, Link Your Purpose, to expand its work and contribute to the organisation’s sustainability.