Women in T&T are be­ing pro­vid­ed with a plat­form for eco­nom­ic em­pow­er­ment and op­por­tu­ni­ties for sis­ters to net­work with each oth­er to build and ex­pand their busi­ness­es through the Women’s En­tre­pre­neur­ial De­vel­op­ment and Prod­uct Ex­po–”Women’s Vil­lage” .

This was the as­ser­tion of Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter– Gen­der and Child Af­fairs, as she en­cour­aged San Fer­nan­do vis­i­tors to pa­tro­n­ise the third in­stal­ment of the Women’s Vil­lage at Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do, last Wednes­day.

“To­day (Wednes­day) is im­por­tant as we es­tab­lish a plat­form for women’s eco­nom­ic em­pow­er­ment and pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for sis­ters to net­work with each oth­er to build, and ex­pand each oth­er’s busi­ness­es,” she said at the event.

Web­ster-Roy re­mind­ed the pub­lic that the Women’s Vil­lage was birthed out of the need to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for vul­ner­a­ble women, such as sur­vivors of gen­der-based and sex­u­al vi­o­lence to gain fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence and sta­bil­i­ty.

The Women’s Vil­lage was suc­cess­ful­ly held in March at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya, and in April at the Scar­bor­ough Es­planade, To­ba­go. The Women’s Vil­lage em­body the charge “In­vest in Women: Ac­cel­er­ate Progress” by pro­vid­ing lo­cal fe­male en­tre­pre­neurs free and pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble spaces to mar­ket their busi­ness­es; op­por­tu­ni­ties to net­work with oth­er en­tre­pre­neurs, as well as op­por­tu­ni­ties to en­gage state agen­cies for busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and train­ing.

In ac­knowl­edg­ing the de­vel­op­men­tal part­ners, Web­ster-Roy af­firmed that so­cial is­sues can­not be solved by work­ing in si­los. She spoke about the need for strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tions across sec­tors, be­tween gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies and civ­il so­ci­ety to pro­tect and care for all our vul­ner­a­ble groups. Even in ad­dress­ing gen­der-based and sex­u­al vi­o­lence, she added, we must col­lab­o­rate with boys and men as our al­lies, friends and part­ners.

In­spired by the Women’s Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris shared that he dis­cussed with the May­or of Port-of-Spain ways that they can mir­ror the vil­lage and give more op­por­tu­ni­ties to our small busi­ness own­ers, es­pe­cial­ly our women. The Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Di­vi­sion en­cour­ages all cit­i­zens to sup­port women in nur­tur­ing sta­ble fe­male-owned busi­ness­es as strong con­trib­u­tors to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.