3 more women receive $1.5M in business grants from First Lady

Mar 09, 2025 News

Kaieteur News- Three women are the recipients of three business grants totaling $1,500,000 to fund the expansion of their small businesses, the Office of the First Lady disclosed on Saturday.

3 more women receive $1.5M in business grants from First Lady

First Lady Mrs. Arya Ali with recipients of the business grants

The grants were handed over to 31-year-old Saudia Edghill of Buxton, East Coast Demerara (ECD), 36-year-old Junice Welcome of Kuru Kururu, Soesdyke-Linden Highway and 46-year-old Bena Outar of Mahaicony, ECD.

Ms. Outar specializes in the distribution of agro-chemicals, while Ms. Welcome runs a day care facility, and Ms. Edghill produces patriotic gift items.

The three women were participants in the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women’s HerVenture programme and Road to Growth training which is a platform that provides women with business development training.

This year, International Women’s Day is being observed under the theme “Accelerate Action” and according to First Lady Arya Ali, this is exactly what she intends to use her office to do.

“Accelerating action means speeding up what we do to achieve gender parity, and part of that involves making direct investments in the lives of women to ensure they are empowered. We’ve seen a spate of domestic violence cases, some of which have ended in murder, and one of the root causes is that many of our women are not economically empowered. So, we are working aggressively to change that,” Mrs. Ali stated.

The First Lady also explained that while financial support is being provided to the women for their businesses, technical assistance will also be offered for them to scale and expand their businesses through support from business coaches Mr. Keon Smith and Ms. Upasna Mudlier of ActionCOACH.

The First Lady also used the opportunity to encourage the women to extend similar support to other women who may seek employment or guidance in starting their own businesses.

“I hope that this little gesture inspires you to support other women who may need employment or may seek guidance from you to start their own little business. We have a responsibility to each other as women and I want to remind you that we rise by lifting others,” she added.

The three women expressed gratitude for the support provided and made a commitment to the First Lady that they would work diligently to ensure their ventures were successful. Their progress will be assessed periodically by the coaches.

Apart from the business grants, 60 women from Indigenous communities have received technical maritime and offshore training, while another 45 in Region Two have received training in cosmetology, and 45 women who were victims of domestic violence have been trained through a partnership between the Office of the First Lady and Carnegie School of Home Economics (CSHE).

(3 more women receive $1.5M in business grants from First Lady)