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Radio shows to help entrepreneurs

12 March 2008

Commonwealth Connects programme has developed a multimedia resource kit which aims to benefit women setting up small businesses

Betsy Mirkin was an accountant in a large firm, which occasionally did some work for film companies that came to her home town.

After conducting some research Betsy found that there were no other accountants who specifically served the film industry. She also discovered that there were enough film companies that came to her home town each year for her to make a good living serving them. This prompted her to resign and set up her own firm, targeting the film industry.

Betsy is one of several success stories that are highlighted in a multimedia resource kit, designed for radio stations that may wish to teach women entrepreneurs keen to set up their own businesses.

The resource kit was developed by the Commonwealth Connects programme in partnership with Protégé QV, a Cameroonian civil society organisation that promotes the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to empower rural women.

The Commonwealth Connects programme aims to bridge the Commonwealth’s digital divide, which refers to the gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology, and those without access to it.

The resource kit has been set up in Cameroon, where women represent more than 51 per cent of the total population, and where 70 per cent of households have a radio.

“We sincerely hope that we can excite the passion of these radio stations to use ICT by downloading programmes from the Multimedia Resource Kit,” says Avis Momeni, Executive Director of Protégé QV.

Published in both French and English, the resource kit contains practical advice on how women can go about starting small businesses, and what they need to do to make it successful. For instance, it offers practical advice on how to manage costs, how to keep records, and to take stock; it also shows how to recruit and manage employees, and to market one’s product.

“By gathering on one document the necessary resources, the kit makes it possible for radio stations to prepare programmes at low cost and limited time, to assist micro-enterprises in the rural and urban areas,” says Joanne Clarkson, the ICT officer in the Secretariat’s Governance and Institutional Development Division.

She adds that the resource kit, is not only aimed at offering distance learning through radio, but it can also be used by group trainers in a class room setting.