Business training for 85 women, girls in Boss Lady Project

In the spirit of women's empowerment and community development, the Boss Lady Project held a symposium the day before participants graduated on December 4 at the National Racquet Sport Centre, Tacarigua.

Led by Sport and Community Development Minister Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis, the programme saw approximately 85 women and girls participate in a ten-week training course focused on holistic business skills development.

The programme, which provided a stipend to participants, included classes on costume design, makeup artistry and event management and decoration. Life skills training was also a part of the programme, with participants learning about financial literacy as well as leadership, communication and time-management skills.

This project came on the heels of the MpowerTT programme which provides similar mentorship and skills training to men 16 -40.

“We realised that women were applying to be part of Mpower and that led to the birth of the Boss Lady project,” said Jeniece Scott, project support officer at the East Port of Spain Development Company.

“It’s similar to Mpower. However, she (the minister) wanted to ensure that women had the opportunity to be able to earn their own money and get skills that nobody could take away from them.

“We had some phenomenal tutors who would hae been able to teach the participants business and life skill and then they had NEDCO (National Entrepreneurship Development Company) training. We realised a lot of the women required the knowledge to be able to write business plans and market their business ,so we partnered with NEDCO so that they would have been able to execute that portion of it.”

While the project has just begun as a pilot, Scott said the hope was that it would continue in 2025.

Deputy permanent secretary at the ministry Florette Clarke said, “This initiative is not just about business, it’s about changing lives, breaking barriers and creating sustainable economic opportunities for women at the community level.

“The Boss Lady project has fostered a wave of economic and social transformation that will reverberate across the nation for years to come...

“It is clear that women represent a significant yet under-utilised resource in the country’s labour force. Historically, women have faced a number of barriers to participation in the workforce, including limited access to skills training, financial resources, mentorship and markets.

“The Boss Lady project aims to directly address these barriers by equipping women with sentinel life skills, entrepreneurial capabilities and the knowledge required to create a sustainable business.”

Ava Mahabir-Dass, deputy permanent secretary of the Trade and Industry Ministry, said, “The World Bank estimates that empowering women to participate equally in the global economy can add as much as US$28 trillion in GDP growth by 2025.

“Against this backdrop, the ministry established the TT SheTrades hub in 2020, the first in the Caribbean. It is an online platform which aims to increase the number of women-owned business trading internationally.”

Representatives of the TT Trade and Investment Promotion Agency also presented at the symposium, outlining the different opportunities and guidance the agency can provide to  participants' businesses.

Export adviser Deborah Hoyte gave a comprehensive presentation about preparing a business and its products for export. Participants were given a worksheet to assess the export-readiness of their current and future businesses.

Particular emphasis was placed on identifying target markets and developing strategies to meet them.

Hoyte said, “While we want to sell to the world and all the continents, we need to narrow it down. There are 50 states in America: are we going to be selling to all 50? No, because each one of them has different criteria, and depending on what product you have, our target customer may not be there. So we need to look where we can find our target customer.”

Opportunities officer Richard Alfonso outlined the extensive support the agency can provide to business owners. These include trade missions and trade markets in which the agency takes groups of local business owners to other countries for sale, trade and investment opportunities.

Newsday spoke to some participants about their experience.

Latiya Paul said the programme gave her keen insight into the complexities of the business world, but also the guidance she needed to pursue her dream of having a food truck.

“I met some amazing people within the programme and I found out the next step for my business in terms of getting my BIR (Board of Inland Revenue) number and my food badge and all those different things I did not know about.”

Paul also interned at a restaurant, where she got first-hand experience in the day-to-day operations of a food business.

Seventeen-year-old Paris Japal also took full advantage of her internship, exploring her love for art and craft as she worked alongside designer Shawn Dhanraj.

“He was the best person they could have put me with. He showed me all the different places I could source materials for costume designs. It was good, very educational, I learned a lot and I would encourage anybody to do it.”

She said the internship with Dhanraj inspired her interest in starting her own costume design business.

“I want to start my business in January so I could put out stuff for Carnival like Monday wear.”