HerVenture comes to Guyana!

Following the positive impacts HerVenture, our mobile learning app for women entrepreneurs, has had on tens of thousands of women’s businesses across the world, we are delighted to bring our flagship app to Guyana!

We developed HerVenture specifically for women who own micro, small and medium sized enterprises in low and middle income countries. The app is currently available in Vietnam, Indonesia, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, having supported over 41,000 women so far. Now, together with ExxonMobil Foundation and ActionINVEST Caribbean Inc., we’re launching a ground-breaking partnership today to bring vital entrepreneurial skills and support to thousands of women across Guyana so they can grow their businesses.

This vital initiative comes at a crucial time: Guyana ranks 105^th out of 156 countries in terms of gender equality in economic participation and opportunity, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2021 Global Gender Gap Index, meaning the country is ripe for initiatives to support women’s economic empowerment. Meanwhile COVID-19 has drastically changed the way women entrepreneurs everywhere live and work, advancing them further into a digital world. For their businesses to survive, these women must be equipped with the knowledge and resources to move online. In response, we added new learning modules to HerVenture in business resilience, digital marketing and e-commerce, supporting women to navigate the ‘new normal’.

Supporting the growth of women-owned enterprises provides Guyana with an important opportunity to generate sustainable economic livelihoods, reduce poverty and grow the economy. Despite the gender gap, women are the backbone of small business in Guyana, with women’s entrepreneurship on the rise. Delivered through in-country partner ActionINVEST Caribbean Inc., HerVenture aims to reach at least 3,000 of these women entrepreneurs by the end of January 2022. The enhanced knowledge it offers means greater business success for women across the country, bringing huge benefits to families, local communities and the economy, and ultimately helping to close the economic gender gap.

In 2020, we brought HerVenture to Kenya for the first time. Below, you can see for yourself some of the fantastic impact the app has had for women entrepreneurs in the country: