The West Point Women for Health and Development Organization (WPWHDO) on Thursday, March 24, 2022, graduated 100 Liberian women each from a five-week entrepreneurship and business training exercise.
The program was held at the Administrative Building in the Township of West Point.
The program titled, “Empowering Liberian Petty Business Women to Cope with the Effect of the 3rd Wave of COVID-19 Pandemic” is six months funded project awarded to WPWHDO by the Embassy of Great Britain to train 100 vulnerable women conducted in a series of five training sessions.
Speaking at the graduation program, the West Point Women Executive Director, Nelly S. Cooper, challenged the women to take advantage of the training so as to help them provide some capacity building for the future.
She stressed the need for women to utilize every available opportunity for their economic empowerment and realization of basic human rights in the contemporary world.
Madam Cooper also frowned at the way Liberian women had for a long time stood in the back of any national issues including: political, social and economic.
She stressed that providing empowerment opportunities could be the best way forward for the promotion of women’s rights in particular and the contemporary Liberian society in general.
According to her, the aim of the training program for petty business women was to economically capacitate them for some growth in the business community as a means of lifting and improving their own efforts.
Motivating them, she noted, “After this program, you will have to stand strong and do something to grow bigger. If you have a little business you are struggling with, this is an opportunity to open up.”
In her motivation statement, the Executive Director also encouraged the graduates that business is a service to humanity and anyone venturing into it should be cognizant of addressing people.
She emphasized that business is social oriented; the way you interact with people will win you more customers and develop your business.
The Executive Director as a resilient women’s leader, furthered that WPWHDO is still into advocating in coordination with other partners to now provide some financial aid to those that will take the knowledge acquired into a practical way by opening or expanding their little businesses to another level.
On behalf of her institution, she then extended thanks and appreciation to the Embassy of Great Britain for contributing to the lives of women in Liberia and hope that there could be more of the same initiatives undertaken in other parts of the country.
In a special remark, the representative from the British Embassy at the program, Robertetta Rose-Kloh, expressed delight for the economic empowerment of women and girls at this time of the Liberian society.
She said, the embassy never regret being a partner to the West Point Women for Health and Development Organization implementing the initiative.
Mrs. Rose-Kloh said the leadership of the organization had not disappointed them and as such all frantic efforts will be made to uphold both parties relationship in Liberia’s development of women.
She also encouraged the beneficiaries of the training program to stand independently as entrepreneurs in the business circle so that a contribution can be marked in this generation and as far as the more decades to come.
