A total of 300 women in various business start-ups are set to benefit from the annual Sinapi Aba savings and loans Women’s Mentorship Programme.

The initiative trains and supports women entrepreneurs, who are predominantly customers of the financial institution and dependents in their operational areas, with both financial and technical skills.

The mentorship programme brings together experienced women entrepreneurs in selected fields to serve as mentors for potential entrepreneurs and start-ups.

It is a six-month training program that builds the capacity of the mentees and provides them with the needed skills to either start, grow or expand their businesses.

Officials say the move which started three years ago, also serves as the bank’s corporate social responsibility in its operational area.

Chief Programmes Director, Joyce Owusu-Dabo, explained that the programme aims at empowering women entrepreneurs to be change agents in their communities.

“…as part of the programme, we want to make sure that these women are empowered through the knowledge we give to them and then they are also financially not excluded, so we ensure they are included.

There is equity and equality in the way we handle the women in our businesses and then aside from that, we want to ensure that they become change agents in our communities because in our communities we see many women there.”

Sinapi Aba Savings and Loans has been creative in the way it provides capacity-building training to its clients.

The Women Mentorship Programme, since its inception, has served as a platform where women are used as a tool to empower each other, economically empower themselves and ensure knowledge is transferred to help build their communities.

Mrs Owusu-Dabo explains the bank continues to train the clients in a practical and systematic manner.

“...we find it worthy to use our women as a tool to reach the larger community that we have.…. we believe in the wholistic transformation of our clients, giving them inclusive financial services. We believe that the two legs make the person stronger and better to sustain and then grow their businesses.

"…The Mentorship four is made up of three hundred clients, handhold them, build their capacity, skills and knowledge to enhance them with the ability to manage their businesses and manage it well.”

Customers of the bank have been the targets in its capacity-building drive but management explains that more women need empowerment, hence this initiative.

“…we tend to have an appetite for women, because of the class of people we serve. It so happens that a lot of women happen to be in the micro, small and medium space. So we tend to have a lot of women, and so we realised that these women also are lacking basic support and knowledge that will help them better and build up their businesses.”