PRESS RELEASE
Damascus, MD – A group of Maryland-based women entrepreneurs recently returned from South Africa after completing three workshops in different regions of the country for women entrepreneurs there. Part of a program that began in April 2008 when 12 carefully-selected and diverse women were sent to the U.S. for a three week program, these workshops are designed to provide assistance and business development to both aspiring and current Information and Communications Technology (ICT) or ICT-enabled women owned businesses.
As a part of their two-week trip, the US-based women met with the original South African program participants, who now call themselves Femtrepreneurs, to hear how their experiences in the States have impacted their businesses and to receive additional mentoring from their U.S. counterparts. All of the women, without exception, have seen positive and dramatic changes in their businesses and expansion of their vision.
“It was phenomenal,” said Julie Lenzer Kirk, President and CEO of Path Forward International and the lead instructor for the group. “In just the few short months following the US portion of our program, these smart ladies have transformed themselves, their businesses, and are beginning to impact their communities as well.”
The program, which is coordinated by Meridian International Center, was created by a think tank of U.S. and S.A. women entrepreneurs and developers from a team of organizations represented in South Africa by Pretoria’s Maxum Business Incubator at the Innovation Hub and in the U.S. by Multi-national Development of Women in Technology (MDWIT) in Baltimore.
“This program is amazing” said Jill Sawers, Entrepreneurship manager of the Innovation Hub. “We hoped the women would do well, but we now see that a small investment in the entrepreneurship skills of the best and brightest women can impact hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people in South Africa at an exponential rate.”
With funding from the U.S. State Department’s Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau and South Africa’s Small Enterprise Development Agency, the program builds on the success of the training by helping the women reach out to others as they launch a supportive international network of women technology entrepreneurs.
Renee Lewis, CEO and Founder of Pensare Group and a member of the U.S.-based leadership team, said that “based on our own real-world experience, we are helping women entrepreneurs to understand their power to leverage their own community networks for growth. This model catapults women into entrepreneurship faster and more successfully than more traditional models.”
The Femtrepreneurs are also independently providing internships, business, and mentoring to those younger and/or less fortunate women in their communities. Claudia Morrell, Executive Director of MDWIT, stated, “I have always believed that the best way to impact girls and rural women in developing countries is to empower the educated women there to individually reach back and pull their sisters up. It is universal that women want to help others – they just need the resources and knowledge to do it.”
Plans are underway to continue the expansion of the program, both within South Africa and to other regions of the world. “Meridian International Center is proud to be involved in this critically important and relevant program. We look forward to using our dedication to global engagement and our international network of contacts to further expand the impacts of this extraordinary initiative,” said Program Officer Rhianon DeLeeuw.
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I am happy that people in LEDC’s are being helped, not just by giving them money, but helping them make their own life better, and giving them chances to help others aswell. this kind of co-operation and kindness should be worldwide and less selfish people should be around.