The Women Creating Wealth Programme
Women Creating Wealth (WCW) is a Pan African entrepreneurship development programme that has significantly grown the businesses and transformed the behaviours, skills, and confidence of women entrepreneurs. To date the Graça Machel Trust in partnership with Virgin Unite have graduated 300 high growth entrepreneurs in Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia. In 2019 – 2020, we have the pleasure of bringing the initiative to South Africa.
In March 2020, the Trust welcome its first cohort of 120 women who come from various sectors that include mining, agribusiness, fashion, and hospitality. It is hoped by the end of the programme, these women would have grown to wealth creators. The programme currently targeted women from Gauteng programme to undertake this year long development initiative.
The focus on the SA programme will be on enhancing entrepreneurial skills and confidence, a strong focus on access finance including investor readiness to drive more successful application and where necessary advocacy; market access leveraging through preferential procurements and intra Africa trade. It will also anchor peer coaching and mentoring as a means to driving goals setting and performance.
The Trust supports and mobilises civil society networks on issues of ending child marriage, ending violence against children, ending female genital mutilation and promoting childrenâs rights, to carry out advocacy and action across Africa. Special focus is placed on Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia where child marriage continues to be a problem largely driven by poverty, gender inequality, harmful traditional practices, conflict, low levels of literacy, limited opportunities for girls and weak or non-existent protective and preventive legal frameworks.
Education is a fundamental right for all children, which is also a vehicle for social, economic and political transformation in communities, countries and the African continent at large. Recent studies indicate a lack of progress in some of the critical commitments aimed at improving education quality, access, retention and achievement, particularly for girls. In most African countries, girls may face barriers to learning, especially when they reach post-primary levels of education. By implementing multi-dimensional approaches to education which includes core education, personal development, life skills and economic competencies, the Trust partners with funding partners, governments, civil societies and the private sector to improve education access.
The Nutrition and Reproductive, Maternal, New-born, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition, (RMNCAH+N) of the Childrenâs Rights and Development Programme aims at promoting the Global Strategy for women, children and adolescentsâ health within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda. The strategy emphasises on the importance of effective country leadership as a common factor across countries making progress in improving the health of women, children and adolescents.
Through its Early Childhood Development (ECD) plan, The Trust will seek to put into action the new science and evidence Report that was presented by Lancet Series on Good and early development – the right of every child. This will be achieved by mobilising like-minded partners to contribute in the new science and evidence to reach all young children with ECD. The Trustâs goal is to be a catalyst for doing things differently, in particular, to rid fragmentation and lack of coordination across ECD sectors. In response to evidence showing the importance of political will in turning the tide against the current poor access and quality of ECD. Even before conception, starting with a motherâs health and social economic conditions, the early years of a childâs life form a fundamental foundation that determines whether a child will survive and thrive optimally.