‘Road to Growth’ programme sees 24 women entrepreneurs graduating

24 women entrepreneurs graduated from the ‘Cherie Blair Foundation for Women – Road to
Growth programme, on Saturday. It was aimed at enhancing one’s capacity and marketability of
women-led businesses in Guyana.
The seven-week programme was made possible through a collaborative effort between the
Cherie Blair Foundation, Exxonmobil Foundation and Action Invest Caribbean Incorporated
among others. The programme covered topics such as Knowing Your Market, Digital Marketing,
Knowing Your Business, Understanding Financing, Managing Financial Relationships and
Applying for Financing and Confidence building. Guyana Women Leadership Institute’s
(GWLI), Senior Training Officer, Sanjay Pooran said that the purpose of this programme goes
‘hand in glove’ with the Human Services Ministry’s Women’s Innovation and Investment
Network (WIIN).
He revealed that it is the brainchild of Minister Vindhya Persuad, noting that WIIN has been
helping hundreds of women by empowering them with the necessary skills and knowledge to
become financially independent.  Poran pointed out that thus far, the ministry has trained about
1400 women, with the intention of training 3000 in 2022. “That is why we are here to help you
acquire a better position at work or find a better job or even start a new business so we are
excited for this collaboration, this opportunity to work with partners such as Action Coach so
that we can impact the lives of women and girls across the country,” Pooran said. British High
Commissioner to Guyana, Her Excellency, Jane Caroline Miller thanked the graduates for
recognising the need to advance their existing businesses by participating in the programme
geared to boost women entrepreneurs.

The High Commissioner disclosed that the foundation’s vision to provide such opportunities to
women is in the hopes that they can reach their full potential and thus, closing the global gender
gap in entrepreneurship. As such, Ambassador Miller expressed the hope that they can not only
use the knowledge given to expand their businesses to new heights but to share that knowledge
to others in need and in keeping with the foundation’s philosophy to encourage mentorship
amongst peers. The High Commissioner advised the graduates to, “develop tools that will help
you grow, learn from all of your failures and lastly, find yourself a mentor (to help you along the
way to success).” Action Invest Caribbean Incorporated’s Chairman, Vishnu Doerga said that
while there were minor setbacks to conduct this programme amid the pandemic, systems were
put in place to do so. “It was a real pleasure for the team to be serving all of the participants in
the road programme which is taking place in five countries. We did end up starting the
programme towards the tail end of COVID, where in many countries they have already gone
fully online and we had to negotiate for this, but it was worth it,” Doerga declared.
Road to Growth-Guyana follows the successful roll-out of the Foundation’s flagship training
programme for women entrepreneurs in Mexico, Nigeria, Kenya, Vietnam and Indonesia.