BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE government of St. Kitts and Nevis has launched a national skills training programme that aims at improving the lives of women who are owners of small business establishments.
The programme, Women In Small Business Enterprises (WISE), was launched at The Circus in Basseterre on Friday (Feb. 15) and was attended by some 20 female entrepreneurs from around the island.
As explained by the Minister of Gender Affairs, Hon. Marcella Liburd, WISE is a national skills training programme that offers financial stimulus package for participants and is one out of six components of the government’s People Employment Programme (PEP) which was launched in December 2012.
Minister Liburd informed that the programme would cater to the women who are already operating small or micro businesses.
“We mean people selling from trays, people who have these small shops, people who do all these little sales on the streets and so on. People who have hairdressing salons and who sell clothes and so on in a small way, or those who have like a small mauby business. We want to make sure that these are the women who we are catering to.
“The rationale behind WISE is to help women like you to be able to stimulate your business, even in a very small way, so you’ll be able to access some funds in order to help you stock… maybe buy some sort of equipment.”
Liburd said the intent of WISE is to help those businesswomen to do better in their business establishments.
She revealed that for some time now the Ministry of Gender Affairs has been studying the data and analysing the situation with respect to women and the economy.
Liburd went on to highlight areas which currently affect women and also gave important reasons behind the push for the programme.
“We strongly believe that if we take care of the women, families will be taken care of. So that is one of the reasons why we are pushing for women.”
According to the Minister, single women are the head of the majority of families in the Federation.
She also disclosed that women generally are at the lowest end of the income bracket.
Liburd revealed that more women are in poverty when compared with men.
“Another reason has to do with poverty. Even though we are doing better in terms of poverty, the data that we have in respect to poverty still indicates, when we look at it, there are more women in poverty than men. And as we say when a woman is in poverty, a whole family is in poverty.”
Director of Youth Empowerment Geoffrey Hanley said WISE would provide an “opportunity to gain information, skills training and eventually financing to sharpen skills and to enhance your little business.”
He urged the entrepreneurs “to continue to do the good job that you are doing”.
Hanley spoke about PEP as a means of “ensuring that we provide a holistic approach for the empowerment of our people. Not only our young people (but) recognising that the elders and women in particular are instrumental in our nation’s development”.
PEP is funded by the St. Kitts and Nevis Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation (SIDF).
Spearheaded by the National Skills Training Programme (NSTP), PEP is designed to bring relief to the unemployed and also to reduce the unemployment rate.
