Business training being offered to Garment and Accessories participants

Participants in the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security’s Garment and Accessories Cottage Industry Initiative will now be offered business literacy training to empower them to become entrepreneurs.

In an interview with DPI on Tuesday, Minister Hon. Dr. Vindhya Persaud said the initiative will create a network of skilled persons whose talents could be matched with industries in need of their skills.

“We are going to train them in several areas like how to sustain a small business. We will also train them on various social issues such as gender-based violence, suicide, how to know and deal with your rights – legislation, what avenues are open to you when you have issues with the law,” she explained.

Dr. Persaud disclosed that this initiative is one of several adopted to replace the Women of Worth (WOW) initiative, which did not perform as expected.   Initially, WOW catered to single-parent women who wanted to establish, upgrade or expand a small business. It was a collaboration between the Ministry and the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI).

While the Garment and Accessories initiative draws certain elements from WOW, this project is different as it simply matches skills and products prepared by women. To create more opportunities for the participants, the Ministry also intends to link skills to niche markets to broaden their businesses.

“We have a pool of over 100 participants and so we have decided to help link them with markets so anyone wants to make reusable bags, then contact the Ministry.  We can link you with a group of people who can make your reusable bags. You want to make scrubs, masks, we can link you with a pool of people who can do it,” she said.

Garment and Accessories Cottage Industry Initiative, which was launched in October, commissions individuals to sew masks to be distributed countrywide, including to schools, health and child care facilities.  To date, 183,000 face masks were created.