Kisumu women trained on start up businesses and management skills as they receive Hustler Fund

By Wycliffe Odera

 

Thousands of women entrepreneurs in Kisumu are being trained on emerging business trends and challenges to boost their management skills as they go for Hustlers Fund.

 

The training lined up in various sub-counties is being undertaken by Impactful women in Business, (IWIB), in collaboration with global business consultants.

 

According to IWIB Executive Director Lilian Kajo, they are targeting women traders and managers and new start-ups to build their leadership and business skills to grow their businesses across a wide variety of industries and sectors.

 

”We noticed women face numerous challenges in business and even the workplace, including assumptions about career goals. The solution then is to support each other,” said Kajo.

 

This is why IWIB has embarked on mass training of women in business or those interested in a trade to equip them with the soft skills needed for business growth and leadership to succeed.

 

 

 

 

“While technical skills and knowledge are fundamental to business career success, today soft skills as the most desirable professional attributes and is the reason IWIB is doing this training,” said Kajo

 

To get more women involved in business, IWIB and business consultant Dr Eliud Wasike has helped train about 200 women in diverse entrepreneurial skills and business aptitude in the last two weeks and the exercise is still on.

 

“This is one of the several lined up to educate women in business  on how to develop their own diverse businesses using different value chains,” said Wasike

 

He spoke during the training held at Mama Grace Onyango Social Hall in Kisumu, attended by hundreds of women in business and start-ups rearing to venture into various businesses.

 

The goal is to ensure that the beneficiaries impart the knowledge acquired in their locality so that they can identify, plan, develop and manage alternative means of providing economic opportunities for their families, ” said Dr Wasike

 

The IWIB training exercise comes at a time when most entrepreneurs are going for the disbursement of the Hustler Fund.

 

Hustler Funds is the first single credit product in the country, championed by President William Ruto in a bid to push up his bottom-up economic agenda aimed at empowering the people.

 

At the weekend, ICT Cabinet secretary Eliud Owalo while in Kisumu, asked residents to be prepared to reap from the Hustler Fund to start or to do business.

 

“We want you to warm up to the national government and reap the low-hanging fruits and long-term projects,’’ the CS said

 

The CS said the Fund will unlock a number of opportunists among the youth and women in business in the region.

 

“The problem is that we have women who are gifted in business but they don’t have the capital to start, now they will,” Owalo said.

 

He added: “Our young people are jobless not because they aren’t schooled. They are in dire need of funds to start something for a living.’’

 

The CS told those interested in the Hustler fund to put structures in place to benefit from it once it is launched.

 

During his inauguration, Ruto stated that the establishment of a Hustler Fund will provide cheap and easy loans to the wananchi.

 

President Ruto said: “We shall implement the hustler fund dedicated to the capitalization of micro, small and medium enterprises through groups, SACCOs and cooperatives to make credit available on affordable terms that do not require huge collateral.

 

Kenyans will from next month be able to borrow as low as Sh500 after the Hustler Funds programme where a maximum limit will be Sh50,000 as determined by the borrower’s credit score.

 

The loan interest will be capped at 8 per cent per year and computed on a pro-rated basis.
IWIB training targets Women involved in various business types ranging from cereal business, running schools, real estate and to agro-processing and transportation services and the food industry.

 

Mary Auma and Pauline Akoth, commended the IWIB training programme, saying that it has equipped them to grow their respective businesses with new skills on how to cope with the challenging and dynamic markets.

 

“My time training here has made me think of how to push the business long-term so I am excited about that,” said Akoth who runs a cereal business and vegetable vending at the Jubilee market.

 

Auma said: “I  have equally learnt so much. How to budget, how to market and so on. It has helped me so much and it was such a great program by IWIB that needs to be replicated across the County so that we learn more even about records and bookkeeping.”

 

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