Launch – Republic Financial institution (EC) Restricted (RBEC) is proud to announce that purposes at the moment are open for the third iteration of its Entrepreneurs Enterprise Builder (EBB) Programme. Launched all through the Area in 2022, the EBB is a coaching programme designed to assist Caribbean girls entrepreneurs attain the abilities required to develop tech-enabled, sustainable, worthwhile enterprises.
For its third cohort, the Financial institution seeks purposes from girls entrepreneurs throughout the Caribbean area who’ve owned or operated a Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) enterprise for at the very least two years and search to develop or scale up their operations.
The EBB Programme, developed and facilitated by Enterprise and Folks Growth Associates (BPD), a regional firm providing private and enterprise improvement assist, funded by means of the Financial institution’s Energy to Make a Distinction Programme, was specifically created with girls entrepreneurs in thoughts. The programme affords an intensive coaching and mentorship course to over 80 girls from territories throughout the Area the place Republic Financial institution operates.
Kelly Mitchell, Advertising Specialist for RBEC, defined the importance of this programme to girls within the Japanese Caribbean. “The Financial institution noticed the necessity to assist develop girls in enterprise as we acknowledged that whereas they’ve many sensible concepts, they usually don’t get the assist wanted to maneuver ahead. Subsequently, we felt it essential to supply this coaching program in order that they will develop their concepts into thriving companies”.
Purposes for the programme opened on Worldwide Girls’s Day (IWD), March 8, 2024. CARICOM Secretary Common Dr Carla Barnett congratulated Republic Financial institution on championing such an initiative. Describing the programme as daring and very important, she famous the parallels between the EBB and this yr’s Worldwide Girls’s Day theme.
“The theme, “Spend money on Girls, Speed up Progress” highlights the important position girls play in growing their communities and nations. Opening the best way for extra girls to grow to be entrepreneurs is one option to propel the financial and social development of our nations,” she famous. “Girls within the Caribbean have lengthy been concerned in enterprise, tiny companies specializing in self-employment to “make ends meet” by means of cottage industries, now generally known as micro-enterprises, in areas equivalent to agro-processing, catering, private care and buying and selling. Subsequently, the Entrepreneurs Enterprise Builders Programme can help girls to construct scale and sustainability of their enterprise enterprises”.
The EBB goals to empower girls with enterprise expertise, together with enterprise improvement, advertising and marketing, bookkeeping, and management, permitting them to remodel an concept into one thing nice. The programme will start formally in Could and run for 5 months till October 2024. The deadline for purposes is March 31, 2024.
