The Women’s Academy for Leadership and Political Excellence (WALPE) with assistance from Diakonia conducted two capacity building trainings in social entrepreneurship, value addition, branding and access to markets in Gwanda urban and rural-Manama in Matebeleland South, from 14 to 17 September 2022.
120 aspiring women leaders were capacitated with skills and knowledge in social entrepreneurship so as to help them understand:
• What financial literacy is,
• What is budgeting,
• How to budget,
• The importance of value addition, branding and packaging.
• How to run successful businesses and projects as aspiring leaders who will be responsible for managing different projects in their communities and
• How to market their products physically and digitally.
The practical part of the trainings saw the aspiring women leaders being taught how to make marmalade jam, dried vegetables/mufushwa and tomato sauce for resale in order to supplement their incomes.
The social entrepreneurship model of training is meant to support women that are aspiring for public leadership positions to ensure that they are able to fund and support their campaigns and other leadership activities as well as to support their families.
This was done as a realisation that women were shying away from participating in politics and leadership positions because of the financial constraints it has on them and their families. Hence, the training and financial support is meant to create a better financial support for women to take up and equally participate in public leadership positions thus, paving way for gender equality.
