WCIC hosts a mentoring programme for women

6 July 2015 12:08 pm

By Jessica Mathiasz

“You can tell who the strong women are. They are the ones you see building one another up instead of tearing each other down” - unknown-. We at LW were invited to a program which is very much in line with the above mentioned quote.

The WCIC (Women’s Chamber of Industrial Commerce) are a group of women who help rural and urban women to develop their entrepreneurial skills and leads them to economic independence. Recently the WCIC hosted a mentoring programme for women from around the country. The above programme aims to increasing a woman’s capacity of knowledge, insight, support and guidance from mentors. 72 women were present from different parts of the country with the hope of becoming successful businesswomen in the future. Some are in micro/small businesses, whilst others wanted to start-up a business. Two mentors were allocated at each table of mentees for a session of interaction. The mentors were given a questionnaire to be filled with the details they gathered by speaking to them individually. This session also gave an opening to mentees to talk to mentors and gain confidence. The mentors present were business women, corporate leaders, bankers, and established figures in the fields of finance and accounts, beauty culture, education and law. They are all proficient in the field of entrepreneurship. All mentors are members of the WCIC. The programme also consisted of a session on Business Registration and Banking. The Business Registration session was done by Mr. Lalith Senanayake, partner of Tudor V Perera and Co. and the Banking session was conducted by Mr.Udena Pathirage from Regional Development Bank. Also present was Mr. Sarath Bandara from the Industrial Development Board, and the mentees had the opportunity to ask questions from the experts present. From the evaluations that were done at the end of the session, the WCIC hopes to create the next step to be undertaken towards the making of successful entrepreneurs from the women who attended the workshop.