KPMG has once again partnered with Women In Networking (WIN) Ltd to set up a Women In Networking (WIN) Leadership Programme for grassroot women entrepreneurs, as part of its CSR initiative for 2017. This is the second group of women from various sectors to benefit from this type of Empowerment programme.

The award ceremony for this programme was carried out on Wednesday 22^nd November, at the National Women Development Centre, Phoenix. Ms Anuradha Nunkoo Chairperson of WIN, made the welcome speech, and Ms Su Lin Ong, Director, KPMG delivered the key note address.

Ms Ong stated that “At KPMG, we strongly believe that as a business we have a role to play in making Mauritius a better place, by being socially responsible. In fact one of our core values is to “Improve Communities”. This core value drives our culture and business philosophy and also underpins our corporate social responsibility.” She further highlighted that “At the global level, KPMG strives to include women as employees and as leaders, through our Inclusion & Diversity strategy. This commitment has resulted in our global workforce being made up of nearly 46% women. This percentage is also represented at management level as 43% of management are women. In KPMG Mauritius, 70% of our staff are women with 44% in management.”

 

Objectives of the programme

• To develop women leaders at grassroots levels – i.e. empower those who are already active in their own locality or community by giving them the appropriate tools and the necessary self-confidence to bring positive change in our society and in their local community in particular.
  
• To enable the women who wish to start their own business, diversify their field of expertise or expand to sustain their enterprise gain the knowledge and business acumen to succeed.

 

The beneficiaries

33 women from various regions around the island, including pockets of poverty have benefitted from this training. The Beneficiaries of this project were women entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs from the National Women Entrepreneur Council, an institution with the same vision of empowering women and other NGOs with the same vision.

These women are active entrepreneurs on a small scale and would benefit from developing their leadership skills.

 

WLP course for women at grassroots level

The programme has started at the end of July with an induction meeting and working session, from there it spanned over a period of nine weeks. The WIN leadership programme has been adapted for grassroot women entrepreneurs. WIN adapted the course materials, without cutting on the quality of the programme, so that the course could be made more accessible to women at grassroots levels. This means they contain more visuals and a mixture of French, English and Creole is being used.

The participants had to work on their business plan.

 

Modules covered include

• Personal Vision
  
• Critical thinking & Decision making
  
• Strategic Management - preparing a business plan
  
• Presentation Skills
  
• Self Esteem and Self Confidence
  
• Time Management
  
• Customer care
  
• Marketing
  
• Finance (Balance Sheet, P&L, and Determining profits)
  
• Work Life balance - Stress Management
  
• PR & Communication
  
• Negotiation skills
  
• Quality
  
• The Way Forward

 

Once empowered, the women can take more active part in the decision-making that affects their daily lives; they can subsequently influence government policies and programmes that have a direct impact on their own livelihoods and people in their community.