Overview
The Women’s Business Center (WBC) in Jitpurphedi, Tarkeshwar – 3, Nepal, is underutilized. Still, if more women could sell their products, start businesses, and become financially independent, the Center could thrive. This article seeks to explore the gap presented alongside key questions such as, ‘What challenges are preventing women from fully engaging in this initiative?, What can be done to create real economic opportunities for women in Nepal?‘
Women’s economic empowerment is essential for gender equity, as well as development, and it is a shame that so many women in Nepal with experience in handicrafts, agriculture, or production are unable to integrate with the market. In response to these women facing lack of access to business markets and financial resources, Volunteers Initiative Nepal (VIN) established the WBC, which enables women to sell their goods and acquire business support.
Despite VIN’s intentions behind establishing the Center, the WBC remains virtually unutilized, which raises the concern as to why this valuable resource continues to stand underused.
Vision of the Women’s Business Center
The WBC has the potential to serve as a Center for Women Entrepreneurs of Jitpurphedi, where women can achieve financial independence through entrepreneurship. To bring this goal to fruition, VIN aims to:
- Facilitate women selling their handmade goods, farming produce, and other services by providing space.
- Providing classes in marketing, financial management, and customer relations.
- Promoting women-owned businesses and fostering entrepreneurial mindsets.
- Linking women to local and global markets for enhanced sales and income opportunities.
While attempting to accomplish these VIN aimed at building a business environment where women can step out of the ‘subsistence’, and attain financial independence.
Why the Center is Not Used
The WBC is hardly used. The vision was promising but unfortunately there are a few reasons that contribute to the problem.
1. Absence of Active Interest and Information
An adequate amount of community women either have no concept of the WBC or do not know how to utilize it. Outreach and engagement campaigns have not been conducted which limits the potential users of the available services.
2. Insufficient Level of Business Understanding and Self-Esteem
While women are knowledgeable about craft, farming, and trade, many do not have formal business understanding. Not all of them, for example, understand pricing, marketing, budgets, and customer relations, so many of them view WBC as intimidating due to a lack of confidence.
3. Issues of Demand and Sale Not Possessing the Market
A business selling goods requires much more than simply a shop front. Women may be dissuaded from opening shops at the WBC if it does not draw clients, be they locals or tourists. Moreover, women may find it challenging to sustain their businesses without access to transport and wholesale buyers, as supply chains would be inaccessible.
4. Challenges of Financing
Financing barriers alongside raw material acquisition, packaging, and marketing greatly factor into starting a business. Many lack the requisite initial capital for microfinance loans to bet on high risk investments. Consequently, centers such as these seem less enticing as using them in the long run poses no benefit.
5. Social and Cultural Barriers
Social barriers, such as traditional gender roles, is something many women in Nepal have to deal with. Some women might struggle with their family’s acceptance when trying to break free from the confined traditional business structure predominantly practiced by men. As a result, support from family and the wider community seems imperative when dealing with the WBC.
Reviving the Women’s Business Center
The WBC can become a vibrant hub for women-owned businesses, and in order to achieve that goal, partners and VIN must take a few well-thought out actions.
1. Community Outreach and Broadening Awareness
- Go door-to-door to inform women of the benefits the WBC provides.
- Organize meetings and workshops for the broader community so they can learn success stories and ask questions about how the Center operates.
- Leverage radio facilities, social networking sites, and local newspapers to advertise the Center and encourage participation.
2. Offer Theoretical And Practical Business And Financial Training
- Conduct frequent workshops on business administration, selling strategies, and customer relations.
- Work with existing microfinance institutions to teach women how to obtain small loans for investment purposes.
- Create opportunities for established businesswomen to mentor new entrants into the market.
3. Create Market Connections And Strategies for Customer Acquisition
- Work with local hotels, restaurants, and tourist centers to advertise and sell women’s crafts.
- Set up a website or social media page to market and sell goods outside the local area.
- Conduct monthly markets, cultural festivals, or pop-up trade fairs with WBC to broaden customer reach.
4. Promote Microfinance And Seed Capital Grant Funding
- Set up a small grant or microloan scheme to assist women in starting their businesses.
- Supply women in the startup phase of their business with subsidized raw materials.
- Partner with non-governmental organizations and the state to financially benefit women business owners.
5. Tackle Socio-Cultural Constraints And Foster Family Support
- Hold gender sensitization seminars for men and community leaders so that they sympathize with women’s causes.
- Foster family involvement by sensitizing men and children to these issues to garner support.
- Showcase models and triumphs of women who have built successful businesses.
Potential Effects of the Women’s Business Center Working Effectively
If the Women’s Business Center operates effectively, then it can equip women with all the skills required for them to succeed on their own. The expected benefits include:
✔ Increased financial freedom for women, avoiding overreliance on men.
✔ Improved local economic development resulting from women business entrepreneurs.
✔ A new trend where women actively engage in business is shared and passed across.
✔ Improved self-worth and self-esteem amongst women business owners.
✔ Young girls are given examples of successful women to motivate them.
Final Words: What It Will Take To Make It Work
The Women’s Business Center has powerful capabilities to make women and provide enough economic empowerment opportunities in Nepal. Still, it’s systematic inactivity can put the Center at risk of violations such as a lack of engagement, training, financial assistance, and market access, which can further restrict the growth of incredibly underdeveloped countries like Nepal. The suitable strategies for reactivating the Center’s purpose based on the accumulation of data obtained by VIN would ensure the transformation of the Center into an active marketplace for selling women’s goods, making it easier to access independence, confidence, self-worth, and pride. Through this collaboration of VIN, the community, volunteers, and other supporting organizations, the Women’s Business Center can serve as that envisioned space where women’s skills, creativity, and hard work translate into real economic opportunities.
By: Intern Jemini Shrestha
YWC ESC 2 Women Empowerment
Tarkeshwar – 3, Kathmandu, Nepal
