5500 Women trained through WIIN Programme

Women across Guyana are being trained to lead financially independent and empowered lives through the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security’s transformational WOMEN’s Innovation and Investment Network (WIIN) programme.

The ministry has trained about 5500 women in various programmes including Child Care, Care for the Elderly, Graphic Design, Patient Care, Garment Construction, Television and Video Production, Microsoft Office Suite, Home Management and Administrative Assistance.

This is according to the Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Dr Vindhya Persaud during the end of year press conference held at the Ministry’s headquarter, Water Street on last Wednesday.

“In a study that was done looking at about 50% of those women we were able to see that over 56% of those women went into entrepreneurship and just about 30% of them gained employment. Those are significant numbers based on the fact that many of these women were not in the labour market, were homemakers, and did not have the requisite technical and vocational skills to really have the opportunity to generate income for their homes,” Minister Persaud disclosed.

The WIIN programme will be accelerated this year. It will be expanding the array of skills offered in the curriculum by adding culinary skills, agriculture and early childhood development. This will provide an avenue for women who are interested in these areas especially the care economy with childcare subsidy.

“There is also help which we significantly did for a number of our daycares, over 300 of them benefitted from a subsidy that they could have gotten their daycares up and running,” Minister Persaud stated as she encouraged women to take advantage of this opportunity that will assist them in starting their entrepreneurial ventures in day and night care facilities.

Over 300 women benefitted from a government subsidy to assist in the startup of their daycares.

In expanding government support beyond the skill training stage of the programme, the ministry links the graduates to funding resources for the fruition of their business for success and longevity. Additional benefits of WIIN include a core component that equip the women with knowledge on legislation, their rights, the provision of functional business, social issues, legislative literacy, anger management, emotional intelligence and coping mechanisms for a wholistic approach on empowering women.

The programme piloted to offer women financial independence was praised by the human service minister for its success in 2023 stating it is in perfect alignment with government’s manifesto to the empowerment of women.