Women entrepreneurs complete business training
The women who graduated from the entrepreneurial program received their certificates during a recent ceremony.
Forty women entrepreneurs graduated from the Women’s Business Training Program offered by the Sila M. Calderón Foundation, nonprofit officials announced.
The group of entrepreneurs successfully completed the program at the Women’s Business Center in Mayagüez, consisting of 20 workshops offered by experts in different subjects, overcoming personal challenges and those Puerto Rico is facing.
Thanks to the business program, 40 entrepreneurs from the towns of Mayagüez, Aguada, Aguadilla, Añasco, Cabo Rojo, Guánica, Hormigueros, Lajas, Lares, Moca Penuelas, Rincón, Sabana Grande and Yauco, have developed 20 active businesses or are putting them together. Some 23 jobs were strengthened and developed in the process.
“These women entrepreneurs are living proof of what it means to take control of their lives,” Foundation creator and former Gov. Sila M. Calderón said.
“They are women who given their optimistic attitude, drive and courage, have turned a business idea into reality, or have transformed their existing business into a sustainable one,” she added.
“They have overcome challenges of all kinds and are here today culminating a stage of what will be an extraordinary journey of personal and economic freedom,” she said.
Since its inception in 2010, the Sila M. Calderón Foundation’s business training programs have contributed to the island’s socioeconomic development, benefiting more than 1,200 people in 76 of the island’s 78 municipalities, and have so far created some 990 jobs and strengthened and developed 550 micro enterprises.
The Women’s Business Training Program includes individual support sessions with facilitators to strengthen their entrepreneurial skills. Activities lead to the formation of alliances with other entrepreneurs, to share information on support resources and identify opportunities for sales and marketing.
The next cycle of conferences and workshops will begin in January 2018.
