Coffee and Conversations; B.C.C.I. Celebrates Women’s Month
This morning, the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in commemorating International Women’s Month, recognized past presidents of the private sector organization who are women. Coffee and Conversations, as the event was billed, was an opportunity for women in entrepreneurship to acknowledge and celebrate their accomplishments. Kim Aikman is the Chief Executive Officer for B.C.C.I.
Kim Aikman
Kim Aikman, C.E.O., Belize Chamber of Commerce & Industry
“This is International Women’s Month and we came up with an idea to try to honor the women who have played such a pivotal role in the development of Belize in leadership. And so, we looked inwardly at our chamber and the population at large for women who are leaders in their own right.”
Isani Cayetano
“So this is a wonderful way of capping off the entire month of March, in recognition of women. Speak to us on the impact of this kind of an activity on the women in attendance and, of course, women at large.”
Kim Aikman
“The topic is called Coffee and Conversations. We believe that we can learn from each other, just talking to each other and listening to the very inspiring speech of Mrs. Briceño, the Special Envoy. It shows us that we are all the same regardless of what level we are and that we can learn from each other, we are not going through things alone. In different contexts, we may feel like we are there alone but the holistic thing is that we are all in it together. We experience the same challenges, we also experience the same, when we are happy it’s the same things that make us happy and so this is what this is all about, learning from each other, finding out the best practices how we cope and how we address different issues surrounding us.”
Isani Cayetano
“Speak to us about the involvement of women in the chamber and of course in the business community.”
Kim Aikman
“Our members are about thirty-something percent are women and women-led. Now we have eighty percent of our micro members who are women led, so that shows you that women have had to learn and we’ve noticed this since COVID that women have had to come up and make a living because the country shut down and they had to survive and they’ve done a great job at it. In terms of the chamber, itself, unfortunately, it took from 1920 to 1986 before we had our first female president and of the hundred and three years, we’ve only had five female presidents. But, of late, we are seeing that improving or becoming more frequent in the latter years. So that’s a good thing and we hope to continue on that trend.”
