Govt training provides leg up to women entrepreneurs
AWORKSHOP held recently by the Ministry of Trade, Cooperatives, Small and Communications and Medium Enterprises has provided business skills for women entrepreneurs who successfully completed the Improve Your Business Training.
These women were also assisted with a $1,000 grant under the Ministry’s Trade Enhancement Program to improve and expand their business.
Grant recipient, Sereanaa Jedidiah, in commending the three-day training said that “this will help us in our business and I am so grateful to be a part of this”.
“I studied up to Form five level and I always had the passion for flowers, to volunteer and serve people which pushed me to work for the hotel sector and now I am happily running a small business for almost five years now,” Ms Jedidiah said.
“Being a florist and doing screen printing, I thought I knew everything about the business but I have learnt so much here which is an eye opener for me and that I still have more time to improve my business.”
“I learned how to do record keeping where I can budget as well and also manage to save more for my business,” she said.
Ms Jedidiah relayed receiving an order from a customer and incorporated her learning from the training by spending only $30 to complete the order and earned $100.
“I have to commend my trainer for teaching us so well and I thank God as this was very enlightening for me, and I also thank the Government for the $1,000 grant to improve my small business,” she beamed.
“I have a heart that likes to love and care for other people and I thought that I only have to please the customers but now I know that I also have to save the proper way,” Ms Jedidiah said.
“I didn’t know anything about cash flow and this three-day training taught me so well that now I can manage to do cashflow for my business as well as record keeping.”
“Even though I am 44-years-old, I know I can still learn more. I operate my business from home and online as well under Jedidiah Enterprises and the flowers are priced from as low as $25 to $180,” she added.
Last year, Mrs Jedidiah went to New Zealand and took some of her screenprinting samples which most of her friends liked so she is planning to upskill herself and go again this year.
“I will use the grant money to upgrade my screen-printing business and buy more stock,” she said.
“Sometimes, we limit ourselves when we stay home but we should find our abilities to work on our skills and keep going, therefore, I would like to encourage women to start with something small and grow it.”
“My husband is a priest but I don’t stop myself by just being the wife of a priest because I know that I have a gift of this skill which motivates me to work better towards it and enjoy it,” she added.
Her future plan is to have a shop where she can sell flowers from, do screen printings and sell earrings too as she plans to keep upgrading and improving herself.
“If I have my own place with a spacious land then I can also grow my own flowers so I can save money on buying the flowers from others and use that spare money on other things that I need for the business,” she explained.
The mother of one said that her husband and daughter are great motivators and supports her in her business.