Amid the Covid-19 pandemic businesses more than ever have had to think of new ways to keep their business afloat with many focusing more online. With many in the Kingdom not knowing how to join a Zoom conference call, SHE Investments, which helps female entrepreneurs, together with the international company Youth Business International (YBI), have now shown the results of their direct and online training programme to teach the basics of digital literacy.
These channels already do and will continue to help thousands of women learn about digital literacy, crisis management, financial management and business model adaption to enable women to recover and rebuild after Covid-19. The programme is led by the YBI and funded by Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google and will help underserved micro and small to medium businesses (SMEs).
The programme started around the beginning of Covid in April 2020, with the first results of the direct learning being just released. A total of 94 out of 97 women graduated and wanted to recommend their learnt skills to others and 78 businesses were reported as still operational at the end of the programme. Monthly revenue of the participants increased by 169 percent, 584 jobs were retained, re-hired or new hires and 100 percent of all those who took part said they were helped by the information provided.
SHE investments was started in 2015 by Australians Celia Boyd and James Wilson and Cambodian Lida Loem. It helps women’s businesses scale up through incubators and accelerators designed specifically for Khmer women and delivered by Khmer woman. They partner with local and international government agencies and with nongovernmental organisations to design and deliver incubators to any industry.
Boyd, co-founder and managing director, told Khmer Times yesterday: “The aim and purpose of SHE is to bridge the gender gap in the SME sector. Most businesses in Cambodia are already run by women but mostly micro-sized and informal. Our goal is to see just as many women running SMEs as men.”
Speaking about the programme, she said: “To recover and rebuild from Covid-19, women need to be involved in the process, as the majority of entrepreneurs in the country [are]. But, to do so, they need access to the relevant digital skills and support to be able to do so.”
She added “With many people thinking e-commerce is the way forward they need the skills to be able to take the correct photo to market their product, or use selling websites correctly. This is what the programme taught its students.”
The partnership between YBI and SHE investments came as a surprise to Boyd who originally thought their first email was spam in April 2020. However, she read the email and took a phone call that explained all about Google.org’s new “Rapid Response & Recovery Initiative” and her team then submitted a proposal to be a partner in Cambodia the same month.
YBI is a global network of organisations in more than 50 countries supporting young entrepreneurs to achieve their dream of a successful business, creating more jobs and strengthening communities.
This article was first published in Khmer Times. All contents and images are copyright to their respective owners and sources.
