Uweal to mentor women in business

Many women doing businesses have been struggling and have no platform to develop their enterprises. This has led to stagnation while others never live to celebrate their first anniversary.

Because of this, Technoserve, a US based non-profit organization, which supports management skills through training and coaching came up with a mentorship curriculum programme dubbed ‘Women mean Business’ (WMB) to help women improve their businesses.

However, the programme is winding up at the end of this year after five years and in order to ensure that mentoring continues, Technoserve has partnered with Uganda Women Entrepreneurs’ Association Limited (Uweal) to carry the programme forward and help female-owned businesses sprout from their small nature into bigger entities.

Speaking at the handle-over breakfast meeting this week, Ms Meralyn Mungereza, the Technoserve Programme Manager said, “We firmly believe that it is worthwhile investment to continue to build a cadre of mentors to offer this opportunity to other women SMEs beyond WMB programme”.

Technoserve has invested over $3 million in mentoring and coaching women in improving their businesses.
Mr William Mugerwa, the Technoserve senior business advisor the programme has seen over 1,000 women mentored plus 126 certified mentors trained.

“We have seen women create new businesses while others have started running their businesses professionally which was not the case before. Because of this, women have doubled their incomes and created jobs,” Mr Mugerwa noted.
Uweal board member Hope Jeminah Kasimbazi said their 27-year experience has helped so many women grow their businesses.
“Uweal has a reputation in the East African Community and have also been doing a similar programme and we this taking on WMB is an added advantage and we are ready to execute the job,” Ms Kasimbazi said.
The association boasts over 1,000 businesswomen.

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