Accelerate-Her returns to prepare women entrepreneurs for oil & gas industry

The Centre for Local Business Development has issued a call for applicants for the second cohort of its entrepreneurship programme, Accelerate-Her – which helps women entrepreneurs to upskill their business sense.
The Accelerate-Her programme provides Guyanese women with an opportunity to receive professional development and mentoring to foster personal growth and business success. It is funded through the Greater Guyana Initiative and rolled out through the Centre for Local Business Development. There is no cost attached for participants.

Director of the Centre for Local Business Development, Natasha Gaskin-Peters on Thursday outlined that the Centre aims to reach out to businesses that are outside of the oil sector and prepare them for industries.
It was found that women-owned businesses operated in areas not core to the oil and gas industry. After a successful stint in 2021, the programme was reintroduced and will include coaching, mentoring and other resources.
“As we examine the profile of businesses that we had, we found that women-owned businesses were mostly operated in areas that were not core to the oil and gas sector. They were in agro-processing, tourism, consultancy, and so this is why we launched the Accelerate-Her programme. It was quite successful and we are running it again in 2022,” the Director noted.
Gaskin-Peters further stated that such initiatives move Guyana one step closer to gender equality. Last year, over 90 persons expressed interest in the Accelerate-Her programme from a wide cross-section of women and areas.
“We found last year that it was very instrumental for these businesses, to see where they are and where they want to be, looking at the various value propositions for their businesses…We will try to understand where their strengths are, where their weaknesses are.”
“For us, this particular programme really goes towards gender equality and how it is that we target gender equality here in Guyana. We are aware that the empowerment of females in our society is very key to poverty reduction, economic growth and development. For us, reaching beyond core companies into targeting not only smaller business but businesses operated by women plays a very important role in our society.”
Accelerate-Her targets local women owners, operators, and managers to build the leadership and business skills of women entrepreneurs to grow their companies across a wide variety of industries and sectors. The Centre programme accelerates local small business through tailored workshops, access to one-on-one mentoring, and creating a supportive peer-learning environment for women.
Last year, over 90 women entrepreneurs from seven different regions across a multitude of sectors applied to be a part of Accelerate-Her. From this list 35 women were shortlisted for Phase One and a further 16 were shortlisted for Phase Two. The 2022 programme will run from May to August.
Applications will be open until April 8, 2022, and 35 participants will be shortlisted to move forward to the first phase. After this is completed, a minimum of 15 will move forward to a 13-week programme and paired with mentors and business coaches to help with their entrepreneurial journey, marketing training and financial training.