Pro Mujer Inc.

04/29/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 04/29/2024 15:27

500 Colombian Women to Learn Entrepreneurial Skills Thanks to Pro Mujer and Victoria’s Secret

500 Colombian Women to Learn Entrepreneurial Skills Thanks to Pro Mujer and Victoria's Secret

500 Colombian women will join the over 66,000 womenwho have participated in Emprende Pro Mujer since its start. Emprende Pro Mujer is an entrepreneurial training platform developed by Pro Mujer that empowers and enables training opportunities for women entrepreneurs through micro-trainings and learning paths adapted to their context and needs.

This new cohort of woman was made possible through an agreement signed between Pro Mujer and Victoria's Secret, which will bring more than 2,000 hours of synchronous and asynchronous training, group mentoring sessions, master classes, microlearning content, and personalized support services during all stages of their entrepreneurial journey to women across the country who wish to improve or start their ventures.

The program has already proven successful in 23 Latin American countries, and focusing now on Colombia is particularly meaningful, as by the end of 2023, 3.4 million micro-businesses were registered, with 37.5% of these owned by women (EMICRON - DANE, 2023).

Broadening the view, the outlook for women is not much better. They make up only 42.7% of the working-age population that is either employed or actively seeking work, and of this already limited group, a mere 41.7% are actually employed (DANE, 2024). These figures, while concerning, also highlight the need for programs that provide business coaching and training, to incorporate entrepreneurship as a viable, sustainable option that genuinely contributes to women's economic autonomy.

Thanks to this partnership, Emprende Pro Mujer will expand the reach of its digital model to vulnerable communities and include even more components in its program, such as Blockchain, digital inclusion, and virtual and augmented reality; in addition to adapting all its processes to better fit the various national and cultural contexts.

According to Carmen Correa, CEO of Pro Mujer, "Pro Mujer will continue to grow in Latin America, delivering new opportunities to women in vulnerable conditions with the help of new allies and projects that will allow us to continue transforming their lives. We trust that we can generate an even greater impact so that each entrepreneur can consolidate her business and thus constitute an opportunity for progress for them and for local economies."

The agreement will be carried out through 'The Victoria's Secret Impact Fund', which was created to advance opportunities and resources available for women artists and entrepreneurs around the world. The fund of The Tour, the fashion and art event that takes Victoria's Secret to celebrate the processes and narratives of artists in Bogotá, Laos, London, and Tokyo. Its focus, and its interest in working with Pro Mujer for Colombian women, is to generate equitable conditions for entrepreneurs and create opportunities for emerging women artists. The virtual training model proposed by Emprende Pro Mujer in Colombia is perfect for this, as it allows the training to adapt to the current digital context and the learning styles of each woman.

Thanks to this, we have achieved that the total benefit of the program represents a 21% increase in the total income of the graduates and 49.6% of them have increased their savings capacity. Additionally, upon completing their training, users achieved a 91% increase in their sales between September and November 2023, and 80% expressed their interest in applying for a loan to continue growing as entrepreneurs.

However, the figure that most mobilizes both the program and the agreement is that of empowerment: 73% of the female entrepreneurs who went through Emprende feel confident to make progress in their business, and 91% consider themselves leaders.

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