At least 227 women entrepreneurs from Nansana Municipality have completed a rigorous 10-day training in managing and running businesses and transforming them as part of the Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW) Project.
The training was conducted by the Makerere University Business School (MUBS).
Speaking during the graduation ceremony of the 277 women, MUBS Principal, Prof Moses Muhwezi urged the women to seek more business knowledge which will help them scale greater heights.
“The environment we are in, the days are over for people to be successful without knowledge. You will not be successful in business without knowledge. Investing in knowledge for entrepreneurs is crucial,” Prof. Muhwezi said.
He underscored the role of acquiring more knowledge for entrepreneurs.
“Investing in knowledge means you are able to take the right decisions. Everybody needs to invest in knowledge. If there is a workshop or fellowship attend. If there is a training let’s say, by the Ministry of Gender, attend. When you add all those trainings, it will add up,” he said.
Commenting about the training to women under the GROW project, Prof. Muhwezi said it was intended to impart entrepreneur skills among women to help their businesses grow but also survive.
“This training was aimed at having mindset change for women, believe in themselves, plan for their businesses but also leverage on technology through the smartphones they have to grow their businesses,” he said.
Dr. Diana Nandagire Ntamu, Director for the Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Incubation Centre at MUBS said women need more than survival-based business models.
“A study we conducted indicated that women entrepreneurs lack digital skills to leverage technologies which have emerged. Women are challenged by home chores and don’t have time to out and network. This why this training was crucial in imparting skills for women entrepreneurs to enable their businesses succeed,” Dr.Ndagire said.
“We developed a curriculum with a module on entrepreneurship mindset changing which is about how these women can identify and exploit opportunities within their environment, personal development looking at how they take initiatives and take them on.”
John Ssengendo, the GROW Project coordinators explained that the project is aimed at supporting women businesses grow.
He said this is being done in a number of ways, considering the need for each woman entrepreneur.
“There are those who want loans but others have nowhere to learn from. That’s why we brought this. We want to help women have thriving businesses. The project also has an aspect of work placement where we take women entrepreneurs to successful businesses to learn lessons. Today, we are working on the aspect of skilling women entrepreneurs,” Ssengendo said.
He said that in order to realise this component of the GROW Project, the Ministry of Gender which is the implementing entity partnered with MUBS to help train women entrepreneurs.
She said so far women entrepreneurs from Nansana and Makindye have been trained, noting that more will be trained.
Nansana Municipality Mayor, Regina Nakkazzi Bakitte Musoke hailed GROW Program for the component of skilling women entrepreneurs that she said will empower them with knowledge in scaling up their businesses.
“Unemployment levels in the country are high. In Nansana alone, 69% of our young people are unemployed. With these statistics, our universities every year churn out new graduates, most of whom add to the unemployed citizens. The only way out is entrepreneurship. When you train women entrepreneurs, you are giving them knowledge and skills to not only grow their businesses but also employ others,” Nakkazzi said.
She urged the women entrepreneurs to put the skills acquired into practice.