Tesda, Coke team up to empower 100k women entrepreneurs

MANILA, Philippines—From small-time to big-time.

A government agency has joined forces with a multinational company to help women traders become more successful in running their business.

On Thursday, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) signed a partnership agreement with Coca-Cola on the National Convergence Program on Empowering Women Retailers aimed at improving women’s entrepreneurial knowledge through skills training.

Under the program, Tesda and Coke will provide training and merchandising support to some 100,000 women nationwide to help them either set up or expand their own business.

“We know women can do more and do better than playing their typical role as homemakers. Many of them have the confidence and commitment to venture into small business or micro-enterprise but don’t know how to go about it. This is where we believe our intervention is needed,” said Tesda Director General Joel Villanueva.

According to him, business coaching and courses on marketing, financial management, accounting and business viability will be offered in the program.

Tesda will provide the training while Coca Cola will shoulder training costs and merchandise support. A working group will be in charge of monitoring the implementation of the program until 2020.

The program was pilot-tested in Palawan last year.