CP Women’s Chamber launches South Asia Women’s Entrepreneurship Development Project
View(s):The Central Province Women’s Chamber of Small Industries and Commerce (CPWCIC) recently won a grant from the Asia Foundation to conduct a one year project on Entrepreneurship Development in women of South Asia.
The ceremonial launch of the project took place recently at the Hotel Suisse Kandy in the presence of a distinguished gathering including the Governor of the Central Province Tikiri Kobbekaduwa, Central Province, Mayor of Kandy Mahindra Ratwatte, and the Country Representative of The Asia Foundation in Sri Lanka, Ms. Dinesha de Silva.
Governor Tikiri Kobbekaduwa launches the project.
The chamber, in a media release, said that the project funded by The Asia Foundation is designed to foster a South Asian regional network of women business associations and leaders to advance policies and share information; to identify opportunities for cooperation within South Asia and with their counterparts in Central Asia. Specific activities under the project will include cross-border exchange of knowledge, skills, technologies, managerial inputs and trade that will promote women entrepreneurs and women-owned business in the South Asia region.
The Central Province Women’s Chamber is coordinating the project under the leadership of its president Ms. Shirley Jayawardane, founder Managing Director of The Kandy News. The Indian partner of the project is the Federation of Indian Women Entrepreneurs (FIWE) in Delhi led by its president Dr. Rajni Aggarwal, one of the country’s top women business leaders and former Secretary General of the International Federation of Women Entrepreneurs. The partner from Bangladesh is the Bangladesh Federation of Women Entrepreneurs (BFWE) led by its president Ms. Rokia Afzhal Rahman who is considered a pioneer business leader, banker and educationist in that country who has championed the cause of businesswomen for over three decades.