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Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
BEITBRIDGE Senator Tambudzani Mohadi has challenged established and upcoming women entrepreneurs to focus on bigger business ideas that will make a huge impact in transforming the economy.

Government is rolling out its National Development Strategy (NDS 1:2021-2025), a key building block towards an upper middle-income-economy by 2030 and women have a critical role to play, she said.

Sen Mohadi made the remarks on Monday while launching the second phase of training of trainers for Beitbridge women on business skills and value addition.

The training, which is targeting at least 500 women trainers in Beitbridge District alone, was organised by the Zimbabwe Science and Technology Association (ZSTA).

Sen Mohadi reminded the participants that under the New Dispensation led by President Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe was open for business and that women and men have equal opportunities to contribute to national development.

“We have many programmes that the Government is rolling out and now is the time for women to think big,” said Sen Mohadi.

“Let’s go for those big businesses that are traditionally dominated by our male counterparts. We are the backbone of the society and hence we should fully participate in matters of national economic development.”

She said the devolution thrust presents a huge opportunity for women to empower themselves economically through exploiting resources in their respective regions.

Sen Mohadi said women should be capacitated to harness value addition gains and adopting vibrant branding and marketing tools so that they fully unlock their potential in the various sectors of the economy.

She also said there were a lot of opportunities for women in finance and banking, mining, horticulture, livestock production, manufacturing, retail, transport and logistics among others.

“My appeal to those women who have made it in life, especially in business and politics, is that they should help their counterparts to grow.

“We should avoid the pull-her-down syndrome and help each other grow so that we have many women running sustainable businesses.

Women carry the larger social burden and hence the need for us to be empowered to be able to confront some of the challenges,” said Sen Mohadi.

Zimbabwe Science and Technology Association official, Mr Noel Gonese, said under phase one they have trained a total of 5 000 people in Beitbridge on life skills and entrepreneurship.

He said among those trained on detergents, soap making, packaging and branding, hotel and catering-related courses were the youths and the elderly women.

Mr Gonese said they were now rolling out the second phase to empower mostly women in the rural areas who have been adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“After training, we will link the graduates with financial institutions and established markets to enable them to access loans and market their products and services,” he said. — @tupeyo.