BY BEN BILUA
MEMBERS of Solomon Islands Women in Business (SIWIBA) have undergone two days of training on strategic principles to start and grow a business.
More than 15 women turned up on Saturday for the first day of training with high expectations in obtaining additional support to grow their business.
The workshop is part of the US Embassy Port Moresby’s women’s empowerment programmes that will run across three countries; Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.
The Embassy brought in Greta Schettler (an expert in entrepreneurship) from Washington DC to impart skills on entrepreneurship, basic business, and financial literacy to women in SMEs and informal sector.
In an interview with the media on Saturday, Ms Schettler said the workshop is focused on assisting women start and grow their business.
She adds that the training also looks at setting a foundation for women to think of bigger goals given that there are huge potentials for women in business here in the country.
Ms Schettler explained that the training provides an opportunity for women to understand their business challenges and how to overcome challenges, look at networking, positive financing and business management.
She said key focus of the workshop is to help women think strategically to invest and venture into broader market opportunities that are available.
“Lots of time, people have come up with good ideas but one of the challenges how to implement the idea, scale the ideas for growth.
“Most small to medium entrepreneurs fail not because they not have the good ideas, but because they don’t have the right type of planning.
“I’m here to help these women how to start and build their own businesses,” Ms Schettler said.
She said lots of good businesses with good ideas have been represented during the workshop that require ongoing assistance in terms of training to help women reach their goals.
Ms Schettler hopes that the training will help place local women on the right path to grow their business.
