Unilever provides entrepreneurial training to women in UWR

The Unilever Ghana Foundation, as part of its new and improved entrepreneurial training programme, has empowered women groups in the micro enterprises in the Upper West Region with skills to help enhance their livelihoods.

The more than 75 women business groups, including beauticians, dress makers, hair-dressers and weavers associations have been provided with behavioural approach and attitudinal change skills, book keeping procedures and how money works in business, using the 10 personal entrepreneurial competences.

The women were also taken through persuasion, networking, persistence and demand for efficiency and quality, as well as, seeking opportunities, commitment to work and risk taking among others, at the two-day forum.

The workshop was in line with Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan, which aimed at enhancing livelihoods. Mr Andrew Evans Quayson, Chairman of the Unilever Foundation, said, the Foundation in partnership with EMPRETEC Foundation, had for the past seven years, been sponsoring training sessions for selected women in small enterprises.

He said the plan has provided the women with opportunities to better livelihoods for themselves and their families, and they are able to contribute to the socio-economic development of their communities. The Foundation’s Chairman said with the training, the women would better understand entrepreneurial behaviour, and be equipped with the necessary skills to manage their businesses.

The forum would also equip the women with the skills and tools they need in their various occupations and assist them with knowledge in other areas, such as records keeping, cash and working capital management, and the achievement of better customer care practices.

Mr Quayson said, women groups with small-scale businesses in Greater-Accra, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Volta, Western, Northern and Upper East Regions, have so far benefited from the Foundation’s training programmes. He said that more than 1,000 women entrepreneurs have so far been trained, and they have successfully grown their businesses.

Mr Osei Kwaku Agyekum, a resource person from EMPRETEC Ghana, urged the women to always listen to news to enable them to take advantage of government’s interventions to expand their businesses. He told the women that to be a successful entrepreneur, money should never be a goal, but the task to achieve objectives set for the business matters most.