We’re Supporting 3,500 More South African Women

This year, we’re collaborating with the GIBS Entrepreneurship Development Academy (EDA), DHL Express and the Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust to bring our life-changing programmes to 3,500 women entrepreneurs in South Africa!

Together, we’re delivering our award-winning mobile learning app HerVenture and business skills training programme Road to Growth to over 3,500 women business owners in South Africa. Our programmes promise to unlock women’s business potential, boost thousands of businesses, and in turn bring incredible benefits to families, communities and the economy.

HerVenture provides women entrepreneurs of micro and small enterprises with the knowledge and skills required to successfully advance their businesses. It has reached more than 50,000 women across the globe to date. We piloted our HerVenture app in South Africa last year, with 1,800 women entrepreneurs using it to achieve growth and resilience and the majority reporting improved business performance.

This year, thanks to funding from DHL Express and the Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust, newly working with local expert partner the GIBS EDA we’re set to scale this impact. Our HerVenture app will engage at least 3,500 more women as app users and support the growth of their businesses.

Road to Growth, our intensive, seven-week investment readiness training programme, will be brought to South Africa for the first time. It builds on the 2,800 women it has supported so far worldwide in Kenya, Indonesia, Vietnam, Mexico and Nigeria. Delivered by the GIBS EDA, we’re offering a select group of 50 women entrepreneurs the opportunity to progress in their entrepreneurial journeys, building business skills, financial literacy, networks and confidence via online learning and coaching.

HerVenture and Road to Growth have been specifically designed and developed using a gender lens approach in order to support women to claim their rightful space as equal and skilled entrepreneurs. Through the training and support the programmes offer, they seek to address key barriers faced by women entrepreneurs at different stages of their businesses – particularly a lack of skills and knowledge, access to networks and markets, financial and digital literacy, and confidence. This means women are able to learn and apply improved business practices, access finance, and ultimately boost their performance and resilience of their businesses.

But the impact doesn’t stop there. Supporting the growth of women-owned enterprises provides South Africa with the opportunity to generate sustainable economic livelihoods, reduce poverty and grow the economy.

As such, we’re delighted to build on our work and support thousands more women entrepreneurs in South Africa through HerVenture and Road to Growth. We can’t wait to see everything that they achieve.