UN WOMEN shares “In­vest­ing in women’s eco­nom­ic em­pow­er­ment is in­trin­sic to achiev­ing the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs). It sets a di­rect path to­wards gen­der equal­i­ty, pover­ty erad­i­ca­tion, and in­clu­sive eco­nom­ic growth. Now is the time to ad­dress the large gen­der gaps in eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties and out­comes that ex­ist in al­most all coun­tries. Women earn less, have few­er as­sets, bear the bur­den of un­paid work and care, and are large­ly con­cen­trat­ed in vul­ner­a­ble and low-pay­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.”

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic made these in­equal­i­ties even more se­vere, widen­ing the gaps. Women ac­count for 70 per­cent of health and so­cial work­ers, women bore ad­di­tion­al house­hold bur­dens dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, and lock­downs in­creased vi­o­lence against women and girls—in some coun­tries do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in­creased by 30 per­cent.

Im­pe­tus for Change

These sober­ing sta­tis­tics pro­vide the im­pe­tus for change. In light of the litany of chal­lenges women con­tin­ue to face around the world, it’s no sur­prise that so many or­ga­ni­za­tions and poli­cies have at­tempt­ed to ad­dress the needs of women and girls. Pro­grams ad­dress­ing women’s ed­u­ca­tion and eco­nom­ic em­pow­er­ment are not on­ly ben­e­fi­cial, but they are trans­for­ma­tive eco­nom­i­cal­ly as well.

Women’s em­pow­er­ment ini­tia­tives that high­light their right to in­flu­ence so­cial change for them­selves and oth­ers, their abil­i­ty to de­ter­mine their own choic­es, and pro­mote self-worth and self-con­fi­dence are dire­ly in need.

En­ter Women in Busi­ness In­ter­na­tion­al

Dr. So­nia Noel and Dr. Sabee­ta Bidasie-Singh launched their col­lab­o­ra­tive busi­ness ven­ture “Women in Busi­ness In­ter­na­tion­al” (WIBI) in tan­dem with In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Month – March 2022. Women In Busi­ness In­ter­na­tion­al (WIBI) ex­ists to con­nect women en­tre­pre­neurs and fe­male-owned busi­ness­es to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets. Both So­nia and Sabee­ta are pas­sion­ate about build­ing lo­cal ca­pac­i­ty and so WIBI is an or­gan­ic evo­lu­tion of their de­sire to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties to em­pow­er, en­cour­age, and in­spire women as part of a glob­al vil­lage.

Lever­ag­ing the Pow­er of Tech­nol­o­gy

Women In Busi­ness In­ter­na­tion­al will lever­age on the pow­er of tech­nol­o­gy to fos­ter col­lab­o­ra­tions us­ing dig­i­tal net­works. The nu­cle­us of this ini­tia­tive is re­al­ly about women’s eco­nom­ic em­pow­er­ment and the dri­ve to make this a so­cial and eco­nom­ic im­per­a­tive. With on­go­ing con­cerns around the busi­ness case for di­ver­si­ty and equal­i­ty in the cor­po­rate sec­tor, women en­tre­pre­neur­ship is shat­ter­ing the “glass walls” phe­nom­e­na. So­nia and Sabee­ta fun­da­men­tal­ly be­lieve that women are nat­ur­al con­nec­tors, col­lab­o­ra­tors and love the pow­er of teams, their pas­sion is see­ing oth­er women win and cel­e­brat­ing those suc­cess­es.

Let’s get a deep­er ap­pre­ci­a­tion for these two vi­sion­ary founders of WIBI:

Dr. So­nia Noel

Ama­zon Best Sell­ing Au­thor, Speak­er & Fash­ion De­sign­er, John Maxwell Lead­er­ship Coach

Dr. Noel is cel­e­brat­ing 25 years in the fash­ion and cre­ative in­dus­try. She is the founder of many so­cio-cul­tur­al in­dus­try sta­ples in Guyana - Guyana Fash­ion Week - ex­po­si­tions of fash­ion; So­nia Noel Foun­da­tion - an em­pow­er­ment agency for cre­ative ex­pres­sion and phil­an­thropy. Women in Busi­ness Ex­po - ex­hi­bi­tions fea­tur­ing fe­male cre­ative en­tre­pre­neurs; Women As­so­ci­a­tion for Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment - a women’s em­pow­er­ment body fos­ter­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion.

She is a woman of faith and very pas­sion­ate and in­dus­tri­ous cre­ative artist, with a fresh New World per­spec­tive on style and life. She was for­mer­ly a high school teacher in her home­town, in Bar­ti­ca, Guyana. Back then she was re­gard­ed as a small-town girl, but one with a big dream who be­lieved any­thing is pos­si­ble. She is very proud of her Amerindi­an roots, and par­layed this in­dige­nous South Amer­i­can cre­ativ­i­ty mixed with a cos­mopoli­tan Caribbean flair, to craft a unique fash­ion aes­thet­ic that be­came iden­ti­fi­ably trade­marked as the So­nia Noel brand.

Dr. Sabee­ta Bidasie-Singh

CEO of Car­di­nal Ser­vices, a Hous­ton-based man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy and tech­nol­o­gy provider who be­lieves in the pow­er of dis­rup­tive in­no­va­tion in pro­vid­ing so­lu­tions to work­place prob­lems. Car­di­nal’s mod­el is built around emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy that de­liv­ers an im­mer­sive ex­pe­ri­ence. Sabee­ta has lived and worked through­out the Caribbean and 4 con­ti­nents, so her dif­fer­en­tial is firm­ly root­ed in a lo­cal fla­vor with the in­ter­na­tion­al fo­cus. She has spent the greater part of the last 15 years con­sult­ing for gov­ern­ments all over the world in the trans­for­ma­tion push. She is an ad­vi­so­ry DBA for In­vesTT and her group forms an im­por­tant part of the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­forts of the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Dr. Bidasie-Singh has con­sult­ed in the ref­or­ma­tion of the New In­dia Ed­u­ca­tion Pol­i­cy (2020) for the gov­ern­ment of In­dia, the Ac­cred­i­ta­tion of pri­or ex­pe­ri­en­tial learn­ing for the Malaysian High­er Ed­u­ca­tion Coun­cil and cur­rent­ly spends a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of her time work­ing in ca­pac­i­ty de­vel­op­ment for mi­nor­i­ty, women-owned and di­verse busi­ness­es in Hous­ton run­ning the Op­er­a­tions of the Hous­ton Mi­nor­i­ty Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Coun­cil. She con­sults for the Cre­ative In­dus­tries of Trinidad and To­ba­go and is in­stru­men­tal in the in­ter­na­tion­al­iza­tion of the Glob­al Val­ue Chain for Fash­ionTT’s projects. Sabee­ta be­lieves in the pow­er of giv­ing back and has sev­er­al glob­al phil­an­thropic ini­tia­tives that she is hands on with.

Women in Busi­ness In­ter­na­tion­al hosts IN­SPIRE YOU 2022

This year the Women in Busi­ness In­ter­na­tion­al will be host­ing the dis­tin­guished IN­SPIRE YOU glob­al con­fer­ence aligned to the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day #Break­The­Bias theme. The event en­list­ed em­pow­er­ing women across the world, speak­ers from Aus­tralia, Ger­many, US, Guyana and Trinidad & To­ba­go; women who are game chang­ers, who fear­less­ly sup­port oth­er women and of­fer their au­then­tic self in serv­ing their pas­sion.

“We start­ed IN­SPIRE YOU in 2017 with the main ob­jec­tive to en­cour­age women not to rob the world of their amaz­ing con­tri­bu­tions be­cause we all were born with seeds of great­ness.” Dr. So­nia Noel

This year the IN­SPIRE YOU speak­er line­up in­cludes:

Mireille Touleki­ma - an Award-win­ning Aus­tralia-based glob­al en­tre­pre­neur; En­er­gy and STEM con­sul­tant, pub­lished au­thor and on­line talk show host and pro­duc­er. A Pe­tro­le­um En­gi­neer who gained her ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing for more than 25 years in Africa, Eu­rope, Asia and Aus­tralia in a range of tech­ni­cal and lead­er­ship roles for ma­jor oil, gas and en­er­gy com­pa­nies. She has lived and worked across 4 con­ti­nents and car­ries out em­pow­er­ment work in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Mireille is the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the Perth Aus­tralia based com­pa­ny MT En­er­gy Re­sources, Glob­al Chair En­gi­neer­ing of the em­i­nent and pres­ti­gious G100 Club (com­prised of some of the most pow­er­ful and in­flu­ent top 100 women lead­ers in the world) and has pub­lished four books.

Sarona Sama­roo - the Vice Pres­i­dent of the re­cruit­ment and man­pow­er agency, El Do­ra­do Off­shore. Sarona cur­rent­ly man­ages and over­sees all op­er­a­tions for El Do­ra­do Off­shore re­gion­al­ly. El Do­ra­do Off­shore has en­ti­ties in­cor­po­rat­ed in Guyana, Trinidad, and Suri­name due to the oil and gas ex­plo­ration and dis­cov­er­ies there. Un­der her lead­er­ship, the EDO teams in each coun­try were able to rapid­ly scale up El Do­ra­do Off­shore’ s busi­ness. Sarona is a strong ad­vo­cate for Youth De­vel­op­ment and Fe­male Em­pow­er­ment in the work­place at all lev­els. She push­es bound­aries and in­spires those around her to do the same. Her in­no­va­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty as an in­di­vid­ual make her an as­set to any role she serves.

Dr. Safeeya Mo­hammed – CEO, SISU Glob­al Well­ness, John Maxwell Lead­er­ship Coach, UN WOMEN fa­cil­i­ta­tor of the Foun­da­tions/ GBV Pre­ven­tion Pro­gram

Mo­ti­vat­ed by the over­whelm­ing bur­dens of ill health, es­ca­lat­ing NCDs and un­well­ness in the Caribbean, Dr. Mo­hammed found­ed an Or­ga­ni­za­tion­al Well­ness Con­sul­tan­cy aligned to the Unit­ed Na­tions SDG 3. The pil­lars of Re­silience and Be­hav­iour Change were re­in­forced in her train­ing at UNI­TAR in 2017. Since in­cep­tion in 2018, SISU Glob­al Well­ness has pro­vid­ed trans­for­ma­tion­al train­ing to a slew of or­ga­ni­za­tions, name­ly, UNDP, Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank, ANSA Mo­tors, PRO­MAN, Massy Group of Com­pa­nies, cre­atives of Ex­portTT and sev­er­al SMEs. Cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing Lifestyle Med­i­cine at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty, her fo­cus is strate­gic in­ter­ven­tions for the pre­ven­tion and treat­ment of lifestyle-re­lat­ed dis­eases.

She added co-au­thor to her port­fo­lio in 2018, con­tribut­ing her per­son­al sto­ry of Re­silience to the trans­for­ma­tion­al an­thol­o­gy: Woman Across Bor­ders, cu­rat­ed by Dr. So­nia Noel. In 2019-2022, Dr. Mo­hammed served as Chair, Gen­der Ad­vi­so­ry Board, IGDS, UWI and ac­tions ini­tia­tives sup­port­ing women’s eco­nom­ic em­pow­er­ment and health eq­ui­ty.

Dr. Natasha Gaskin-Pe­ters, Di­rec­tor, Cen­tre for Lo­cal Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment – Natasha is an Econ­o­mist with ex­pe­ri­ence in both mi­cro and macro­eco­nom­ics. Natasha’s ex­pe­ri­ence cov­ers the re­al and fis­cal sec­tors which in­cludes mod­el­ling and fore­cast­ing of Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct (GDP), fis­cal rev­enues, fis­cal ex­pen­di­ture, and in­fla­tion along with an­a­lyt­ics on the in­ter­link­ages be­tween these two sec­tors. Present­ly, Natasha works with lo­cal com­pa­nies in Guyana to as­sist them in en­ter­ing the oil and gas val­ue chain. This en­tails con­duct­ing GAP an­a­lyt­ics along with train­ing and men­tor­ing of these com­pa­nies in or­der to im­prove their com­pet­i­tive­ness and ca­pac­i­ty to work in the O&G sec­tor. Natasha is a strong ad­vo­cate of SME de­vel­op­ment and gen­der em­pow­er­ment, key pil­lars to eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of any coun­try.

Dr. Au­liana Poon is Ger­man based and heads Leve-Glob­al. She es­tab­lished Caribbean Fu­tures Lim­it­ed that be­came Tourism In­tel­li­gence In­ter­na­tion­al in 1990; Vil­la Be­ing, To­ba­go, in 2000; Be­ing Sus­tain­able in 2010; the Tourism In­tel­li­gence Acad­e­my in 2015; Lévé -the Event in 2016 and Leve-Glob­al, that aims to co­op­er­a­tive­ly el­e­vate Tourism, Trade and Lives, in 2018. A trained Econ­o­mist, Dr. Au­liana Poon was the first per­son in the world to qual­i­fy with a doc­tor­ate in Tech­nol­o­gy and Tourism. She de­liv­ered the ‘In­tel­li­gent Is­land’ pub­lic Lec­ture in Sin­ga­pore in 1991 and has led the teams that de­vel­oped the tourism pol­i­cy and strat­e­gy for the new South Africa; de­vel­oped strate­gies for trend-set­ting com­pa­nies such as San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al (Ja­maica) and Con­ser­va­tion Cor­po­ra­tion (Africa); de­vel­oped the ‘tourism be­gins at home’ pro­gram that sparked the turn-around in the Ba­hamas Tourism In­dus­try.

IN­SPIRE YOU 2022 will fo­cus on con­ver­sa­tions on the theme #break­the­bias and more, as the dis­tin­guished speak­ers use the art of sto­ry­telling to em­pow­er and in­spire the au­di­ence on how each of them has risen through chal­lenges and bar­ri­ers. The Caribbean cre­ative Richard Young who have worked ex­ten­sive­ly in the re­gion and Di­as­po­ra di­rect­ing and pro­duc­ing fash­ion/arts/beau­ty/cul­ture-re­lat­ed projects will fa­cil­i­tate these con­ver­sa­tions

“In­spire You 2022” takes place vir­tu­al­ly on Tues­day 22nd March 2022 at 8:00 p.m and is free to the pub­lic.

For fur­ther de­tails on the Con­fer­ence

Event Page: https://fb.me/e/2aL­dazJJx

Email: wom­enin­busi­nessint@gmail.com