RAWALPINDI: A two-day seminar on Women Entrepreneurship Capacity Enhancement (WECE) has been organised by the Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU), in collaboration with Shaoor Foundation for Education and Awareness (SFEA).
“Women Can Do” (WCD) project of SFEA was launched aimed at empowering women by advocating women entrepreneurial developmental needs in the country.
WCD’s Entrepreneurship Capacity Enhancement Programme trains and mentors the young aspiring women and enhances their capacity to learn ideas about entrepreneurship. Speaking at the event Ali Hameed, Founding President SFEA said that no nation can progress without enabling its women. The programme at FJWU featured motivational success stories from women leaders, policy makers, social activists, financial service providers and local entrepreneurs.
Such Success stories and experiences by these women leaders, along with technical entrepreneurial skills would assist students of FJWU to pursue their dreams of becoming flourishing women entrepreneurs’ said the Project Manager Durreshawar Mahmood at the WECEP opening session at FJWU.
Some salient features of the programme at FJWU were included motivational talks by Abia Akram Pakistan’s first woman coordinator for Commonwealth Young Disabled People’s Forum and the chair of the Youth Council of UNICEF, TEDx speaker Fatima Lodhi from Dark is Divine and Aneeza Qazi from oil and gas industry.
The speakers shared their success stories with the students of FJWU and gave their views on gender mainstreaming in entrepreneurship whilst breaking socio-cultural barriers and stereotypes in Pakistan.
The programme also included sessions on business communication, writing and marketing of business plan, securing intellectual property rights and organizational development. The vice president of Women Chamber and Commerce Industry Islamabad Naima Ansari also enlighten students on the chamber’s entrepreneurial development initiatives in their region and acquainted them to the available opportunities for young women entrepreneurs.
The programme also featured the ‘Meet-the-Town-Entrepreneurs’. The basic purpose behind the session was to practically acquaint the students of FJWU with the local entrepreneurs who narrated their venture related success stories and challenges.
The local town entrepreneurs encouraged the students to come forward as entrepreneurs by breaking all the socio-cultural barriers between them and their business venture. The panellists of the session were Amber Qaiser from Funky Bake and Madiha Hamid from Digital Marketing Strategies.
In the closing session, Prof Samina Bokhari, Registrar of FJWU appreciated the efforts of Shaoor Foundation for conducting WECEP at FJWU. Capacity enhancement programme like WCD is an outstanding attempt to bridge those gaps that exists between academia and industry in Pakistan, she added.
