The announcement that the Women of Worth (WOW) microcredit programme has been further extended to the hinterland regions of Guyana is a much welcomed initiative.
Started under the previous Administration the programme empowers women, more specifically single parent women to take advantage of the economic opportunities around them, and so increase their participation in society.
Since its launch in June 2010 thousands of women’s lives in Guyana have been impacted in a positive way as the programme seeks to remove the obstacles single parent women face in society, to enhance their self-esteem, to empower them to take advantage of the economic opportunities around them and increase their participation in society.
The ultimate goal of the project is to provide intervention and financial support to ensure WOW participants manage and sustain successful business ventures.
To finance the project, the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI) has provided 0 million and the Government of Guyana will provide an estimated million per annum. However, that figure has been adjusted to million over time. As such women can borrow between 0,000-0,000 from the bank to build their businesses, while the interest rate applicable to the loan is very low, providing that it does not exceed 24 months.
Empowerment and education is both an elevator and a springboard. It allows women to raise themselves up and to break down the divides that keep them from succeeding. At its best, empowerment is a breaker of shackles. A World Bank research shows that half of women’s productive potential globally is completely underutilised, and if that was compared to men, for men it was just a fifth. Women represent half of the world’s population but yet they represent far less than half of measured economic activity.
A study of 60 developing countries estimated that the economic loss from not empowering and educating females at the same level as males amounted to billion a year. As the old adage says, “if you educate a boy, you train a man. If you educate a girl, you train a village.”
It therefore means that education is the key to women empowerment. As Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel Peace Prize winner says, “One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.” And nowhere is it truer as in the case of women, meaning that empowered, educated women will become leaders with the right mindset, making the right decisions at the right time. In ancient India, a divine code of conduct said “Yatra naryastu pujyante ramante tatra Devata, yatraitaastu na pujyante sarvaastatrafalaah kriyaah”. This means where women are respected, there the Gods make their home; where they are not respected, all human action remain unproductive.
Translating this code locally, as the WOW programme enters the realms of the interior of Guyana, hinterland women, more so hinterland single parent woman, like those living on the coastland, are going to get the opportunity to support themselves through this microcredit initiative. This will empower these women to seize the opportunity to control their own future. They will have a voice in their community in a way in which, perhaps, they have not had such a prospect in the past.
Helen Clark, the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, in her speech, women’s economic empowerment for sustainable development, in March 2016, said that strengthening women’s economic opportunities is an essential contribution to eradicating poverty.
Barriers in the economic and social spheres for single parent women has certainly reinforced inequalities but, empowerment is an entry point to opportunity that can have positive ripple effects within the family and across generations.
As Hillary Clinton has observed, women empowerment and equality is not only the right thing to do, it’s also the smart thing to do.
The architect of the WOW programme should be commended for the initiative.
