Follow up mentoring support provided to Women Entrepreneurs, Somalia
After completing training on entrepreneurship skills, financial management skills, and business plan development skills, about 20 internally displaced women received a small capital to get them started with their business.
31 October 2013
The overall objective of the project was to enhance women’s economic participation and empowerment to enable them to become entrepreneurs in their own right as well as creating employment opportunities for them by providing small grants to start small businesses.
95% of women were between the ages of 20 and 39 while 5% of them are under the age of 20. All women were from internally displaced (IDP) camps in the districts of HODAN and DHARKINLEY. Among the women 55% were from HODAN district and 45% were DHARKINLEY.
The Objective of the projects were to:
Out of the 20 supported women IDPs, 16 of them have full control over their business and successfully are operating in the IDP camps.
The women were able to tackle these constraints on their own by working with relatives, husbands, camp management committee, and other individual good Samaritans and get access to open land and monetary contribution to construct make shift premises. The women used saving strategies such as “Ayuuto”, where a group of women come together to improve their living conditions by setting up their own savings and loan fund.
In order to facilitate women’s access to microfinance services, ILO has opened a discussion with the Joint Programme on Local Governance (JPLG), to set up a support scheme where the women can get loans to set up or expand their businesses.
The Objective of the projects were to:
- impart 20 women IDPs and enable them to set up and run their own small enterprises (SMEs) by equipping them with entrepreneurship and business management skills and knowledge.
- provide small grants as well as business set-up and follow-up support to the same 20 women IDPs thereby creating 20 new micro enterprises.
- impart to these women knowledge and awareness that will further their development and consciousness as individuals and as members of their societies.
Out of the 20 supported women IDPs, 16 of them have full control over their business and successfully are operating in the IDP camps.
The women were able to tackle these constraints on their own by working with relatives, husbands, camp management committee, and other individual good Samaritans and get access to open land and monetary contribution to construct make shift premises. The women used saving strategies such as “Ayuuto”, where a group of women come together to improve their living conditions by setting up their own savings and loan fund.
In order to facilitate women’s access to microfinance services, ILO has opened a discussion with the Joint Programme on Local Governance (JPLG), to set up a support scheme where the women can get loans to set up or expand their businesses.