The U.S. Embassy, in collaboration with the Women Entrepreneurs Business Council and the Makoi Women’s Vocational Centre, launched the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) program in Fiji for the fifth consecutive year yesterday.
The embassy awarded US $43,300 (FJD 95,000) to WEBC to facilitate AWE Fiji 2024, aimed at women business owners from Fiji’s Central, Northern, and Western Divisions with diverse backgrounds and business expertise.
U.S. Ambassador to Fiji, Marie C. Damour, stated, “With today’s event, the United States is proud to continue our support for an inclusive, prosperous Pacific. The 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent identifies economic development as one of its key thematic areas, and we join your leaders in our commitment to empower women to be active participants in economic life.”
The AWE program provides enterprising women with the knowledge, networks, and access needed to launch and scale successful businesses.
Seven facilitators from the Women Entrepreneurs Business Council and Makoi Vocational and Training Centre will guide women business owners through the AWE mentoring and training program.
AWE employs a hybrid model that combines the online training platform “DreamBuilder,” developed through a partnership between Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management and global copper mining company Freeport-McMoRan, with in-person mentoring and facilitation.
Through AWE, participants learn core business skills and then gather as a group to discuss the material with their facilitators and AWE alumni, who adapt the material to Fiji’s local context.
The facilitators have also enhanced their knowledge and skills through virtual training from the Washington, D.C.-based AWE team and an in-person workshop that improved their training facilitation skills and course content knowledge.
Since AWE’s launch in Fiji in 2020, 457 women entrepreneurs have graduated from the program.
The benefits of the AWE program continue long after its completion, as alumnae apply their learned skills to run their own businesses and join a broader network of women business leaders.
A recent survey found that over 90 percent of AWE alumnae reported that the program helped them increase their confidence and self-esteem and provided them with strategic planning and public speaking skills.