Training of trainers certification | 2018
AWOME
Purpose
UN Women in partnership with HIH SA and the De Beers Group began a programme of support called Acceleration of Women Micro-Entrepreneurs (AWOME) which was developed and implemented from the year 2018 to 2022. The Programme is aimed at enhancing the capacity of women micro-entrepreneurs and co-operatives in South Africa mainly in the Limpopo province. The capacity building will entail training individual micro-entrepreneurs on business and life skills. Members of co-operatives will also receive training to enhance their entrepreneurial and leadership skills.
The proposed 2022 AWOME Programme has three main outputs as follows:
- Municipalities and local partners advocate for and apply policies and strategies that advance the economic empowerment of women micro-entrepreneurs.
- Women micro-entrepreneurs have increased capacity in business and life skills to successfully manage their enterprises.
- Municipality partners have increased capacity and skills to implement gender-sensitive support to entrepreneurs.
Implementation
The programme implementation process was divided into three main target output goals:
Output 1:
- The number of women entrepreneurs capacitated in core business management knowledge areas in accordance with AWOME packages and model.
- The number of women entrepreneurs capacitated in core digital literacy skills.
- The number of women entrepreneurs participating in business improvement groups.
- The number of Start Your Business (SYB) participants that complete business plans post-training.
- % Of enterprises who are mentored after the training and successfully implement individual enterprise work plans based on the knowledge acquired from program activities.
- % Of enterprises that access other forms of support from strategic stakeholders.
- The number of enterprises that are registered on Google.
Output 2:
- The number of enterprises that are registered with regulatory/statutory bodies.
Output 3:
- The number of AWOME Improve Your Business trainers who satisfactorily complete the Master trainers programme in accordance with ILO requirements.
- National COP formalised and functional as the TOR.
- South-to-South learning opportunities for AWOME stakeholders and trainers convene.
Achievements and Outcomes
- A total of 916 participants were capacitated in the ILO Modules. Improve Your Business (IYB) 392 participants from Musina and 383 participants from Blouberg. Generate Your Business/Start Your Business (GYB/SYB) courses has 73 participants in Musina and 88 participants in Blouberg.
- A total of 71 (31 participants in Musina and 40 participants in Blouberg) BIGs are being supported as platforms for entrepreneurs to meet independently to address business problems/issues, and take a consultative approach to find actionable solutions through peer-to-peer networking, and information-sharing sessions. A total of 48 BIGs are independently operating on their own, they conduct meetings to discuss their enterprises and assist each other.
- As part of South-to-South Learning, HIH is providing Digital Literacy Training to AWOME trainers in Namibia and Botswana. HIH trainers are also participating in the Generation of Gender Statistics Community of Practice Session offered by UN Women.
- A total of 30 enterprises were registered with CIPC in 2021. Efforts to register more enterprises to be fully compliant are being implemented.
- Our total reach since the commencement of the programme is 1025 Women entrepreneurs.
Training of Trainers Workshop
The strategic focus of the training, was to harness the skills of the trainers in-order to ensure that knowledge in the communities is imparted in a professional, efficient and proactive manner.
Hand in Hand hosted a 2-week training for trainers who will be actively implementing the project in the communities of Musina and Blouberg for the entire project duration. The training was held at the Merope Casino in Polokwane on the 8th and 9th of October 2018. Two modules on "Improve Your Business" (IYB) and "Start and Improve your Business" (SIYB) were covered during the training.
AWOME Project Launch
All stakeholders, women entrepreneurs and business trainers attended the project launch gala dinner where anticipated success was celebrated.
Training of Entrepreneurs workshop
The AWOME project is geared to empower and uplift the lives of women in business. A 1-week training for 56 women entrepreneurs was held in November 2018 and certificates of attendance were issued.
