–networking, training & financing opportunities being facilitated by women’s chamber

BUSINESS has been a male-dominated field, but, just as Guyana’s commercial landscape is changing due to the burgeoning oil and gas industry and the ‘spinoff’ development, the Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry is striving to provide greater opportunities for women in business.
Co-Founder and President of the Chamber, Kerensa Gravesande-Bart related that this chamber was founded after a simple conversation between herself and Vice-President and Co-Founder, Lyndell Danzie-Black, on how difficult it is to do business in Guyana. Access to financing and networking opportunities were identified as major deficiencies.
And so, they took it upon themselves, in 2019, to create that niche for local women in business to have access to those opportunities and more.

“The aim of the chamber is to give a voice to the voiceless, to individual women entrepreneurs who are in the wilderness who are complaining like we were… (We) created a platform for them to grow, financially, technically and strategically, through partnerships and networks,” Lyndell Danzie-Black said.
Though that seemed like a tall order, those were achievable objectives because the women knew how to make the right connections and leverage their experience. Danzie-Black is the Managing Director of Cerulean Inc., a corporate training and consulting company, while Gravesande-Bart is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Strategic Recruitment Solutions, a recruitment Consultancy Company.

And these women reached out to other women in business- those who were managing companies and had years of experience in business- and began to create a network. Strategic alliances were also formed with international lending partners, such as the World Bank, and with multinational companies such as ExxonMobil and Repsol.
“That works to help us put together to help new women entrepreneurs and those who are already in business who would want to improve their businesses,” Danzie-Black posited.
Those connections are not only for business-to-business connections, or for women in Georgetown only, though. It was also envisaged that women all across Guyana can benefit from these opportunities.
A chamber of commerce is an association or network of business people designed to promote and protect the interests of its members. The women’s chamber is not only focusing on promoting and protecting the interests of business women, but also it aims to help advance efforts geared at promoting gender equality.
The fifth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) advocated for gender equality, positing that efforts should be made to ensure that there is an end to discrimination against women and girls everywhere. This includes women in business and in the employment market.
And this SDG has, in some ways, paved the way for more organisations to be more conscious of what gender programmes they offer and/or support.
“What we have seen with the private sector and even with the governmental agencies is that they are happy to see that a women’s chamber is now here. We find that they have been inviting us to have discussions with them.

“They are welcoming us and they want to be inclusive, and this gives us a bit more bargaining power as well,” Gravesande-Bart related.
Bargaining power aside, in 2021 and beyond, the chamber will strive to implement some of the plans it has- which were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Training sessions, networking opportunities and efforts geared at facilitating investments will be prioritised.
Importantly, too, the chamber will be seeking to expand its membership.
“We are not just calling on established businesses. We are also calling on women who have an idea to start a business where they would like to get some guidance and they would like to talk about how they can move forward with their business,” Danzie-Black said.
Interested women can contact them via: membership@wcciguyana.com or check out their website at: https://wcciguyana.com/