Workshop aims to improve women’s economic strength

It was a day before 20 women leaders from from six Asian nations left Indonesia after a month-long managerial workshop.

The workshop was attended by women from China, Egypt, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. The program was organized by ExxonMobil and the Center for Development and Population Activities (Cedpa) and was focused on improving managerial skills and strengthening community projects that are aimed at empowering women in their home countries.

On that particular afternoon, participants were finalizing the action plans they would implement after returning to their communities.

A participant from Papua New Guinea, Agnes Siune, told The Jakarta Post that she would set up a women’s cooperative in Simbu Province, where she works.

“The organization we are going to build aims to help village women obtain small business loans,” she said, adding that most women in her village could not secure loans from big banks.

“Big banks ask for financial records on how much money they have, but these are village women who mostly do not have these documents.”

Back in Papua New Guinea, Agnes is a program coordinator at the education department in Simbu Province, where she trains village women on methods to process locally-grown fruits and vegetables, such as bananas and cassava chips.

Marianna, a participant from Indonesia who volunteers by teaching lower and middle-class youth in Bojonegoro East Java, said that she would teach her students about social entrepreneurship.

“Before coming to the workshop, I only taught about entrepreneurship,” she said, adding that teaching about free enterprise alone was not sufficient, and that cultivating a social spirit to balance business interests was also important.

On daily basis, Marianna teaches second-year high school students, most of whom cannot afford to attend university and face either forced entry into the local labor market or moving to Jakarta to find jobs.

“I try to change their mind-sets by teaching them about entrepreneurship,” she said, adding that her
program involved fundamental marketing strategy: developing a sales plan, packaging and branding a product.

Marianna, who is currently working on a batik entrepreneurship project, said she learned a lot from the workshop. “After the workshop, I can now teach students about making better proposals and searching for donors to fund community-based projects,” she said.

Marianna was among 19 other women selected by ExxonMobil to participate at the 53rd Global Women in Management Workshop (GWIM) held in Jakarta.

The program aims to help women in developing countries capitalize on greater economic opportunities by providing training on financial management, leadership, fundraising, strategic communication, proposal development and advocacy. The program also provides participants access to one-year coaching support from workshop alumni to help them better implement their project goals at the community level.

ExxonMobil community relations manager Katri Krisnati said the managerial workshop was a part of the company’s civic responsibility program, called the “Women’s Economic Opportunity Initiative”.

ExxonMobil saw untapped potential because women made up half of the world’s population, but only contributed 10 percent to the global economy, and only two percent of women were entrepreneurs, she added.

When women are given greater economic opportunities, they could make further contributions to their family’s health and education, and also share their experiences with other women in their communities, Katri said.

ExxonMobil has partnered with Cedpa since launching the initiative in 2005. Since then, the company has invested over US$37 million to conduct the annual workshop. (map)