Christian Mothers Association trains female entrepreneurs
Advertisement
Through sponsorship from the Skill Development Fund (SDF), being managed by the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), the CMA has commenced training for 90 female entrepreneurs in prudent financial management, small scale business management, record keeping, banking culture and how to access micro credit.
The members would be trained from the northern, middle and southern zones. Currently, the first 30 members from the southern zone, comprising, Accra, Cape Coast, Koforidua, Keta / Akatsi, Jasikan and Sekondi-Takoradi Arch-Dioceses, and Donkorkrom Vicariate are being trained in entrepreneurial and skills management in Koforidua, in the Eastern Region.
The two-week training commenced from July 8 to 19, is on the theme, “Provision of Small Medium Enterprises Development Support Services Leading to Economic Empowerment”. Modules for the training were developed by the Business Department of the Bolgatanga Polytechnic.
The Executive Secretary of the CMA, Mother Elizabeth Addai Boateng told the Daily Graphic that at a point in time when the CMA was confronted with financial difficulties, the organisation focused its activities on civic education and that had helped a number of beneficiaries, 86 of who were currently assembly women in the various district assemblies.
The group can also boast of the Minister for Tourism, Mrs Elizabeth Ofosu-Agyare who is a christian mother and some are also into church governance. “As they excel in their positions, the church and the country at large also benefits from their status,” she said.
Mother Elizabeth said the CMA lately sought funding to refocus on skill training, following a need assessment from the diocesan presidents, asking the national secretariat to revisit its skill training programme.
The objective, she said, was to help mothers establish their businesses and run them well. “Many of them often take loans to run their businesses and are unable to wean themselves off the loans. But we feel that at a point they should be able to run their businesses with their own money so we thought that we will give them this training to empower them to be able to run their businesses well.
“We expect that through the training they would learn to know their customers, study their needs and how to deal with them and their debtors so they will not run into loses,” she said.
The CMA operates in 18 out of the 19 dioceses in Ghana and has a current active membership of about 35,000 women.
The core activities include the provision of civic, health, formal and non-formal education and teaching of social and moral values, and also supporting the income generating activities of women.
In the last decade, CMA has undertaken many development projects in the areas of poverty reduction, entrepreneurship, micro-finance and spearheaded environmental and societal issues, and is also building the capacity of women leaders to take part in Ghana's decentralisation process.
By Ama Amankwah Baafi/Ghana