Women Gather for Inspiration on Entrepreneurship
While some doors have opened, there is still a long way to go for women to ease into the top of businesses. A conference taking place today has brought women from all over the country to focus on ways to uncover their potential through networking and by asserting themselves in the business world. A very accomplished C.E.O. from the Caribbean, Patria-Kaye Arons, inspired the participants with her account of her success at a candy shop in Jamaica. News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports.
Isani Cayetano, Reporting
The significant role of women in all faucets of society, including areas of entrepreneurship, cannot be downplayed or understated. When women flourish business-wise their communities and countries prosper, generating a comprehensive plan for alleviating poverty globally. Did you know that women in developed and developing nations are becoming more and more involved in local and global economies at a rapid rate? That’s the message that is being delivered to these participants at the third annual LeadHerShip Conference, Belize’s foremost business women networking forum.
Danalyn Myvett
Dr. Danalyn Myvett, Belize WED Ambassador
“We are focused here today on women in business and the entire day will be spent looking at how do we focus on empowering women through business, how can we support them? Through networking, through various tips and strategies that they can get in session and they can take away in a real world sense where they can understand how they can use it.”
For the women in attendance, it doesn’t get any more practical than the success that Patria-Kaye Aarons is now enjoying as Chief Executive Officer of Sweetie. The Jamaica-based candy company is growing rapidly with Aarons at its helm, living proof that women are indeed movers and shakers.
Patria-Kaye Aarons
Patria-Kaye Aarons, C.E.O., Sweetie
“I have the only candy company in Jamaica, it’s called Sweetie. We don’t make blue raspberry candies. We do things that Caribbean people already know and love. So it’s mango candies and guava candies and I’m working on soursop candies because not only do we deserve to have things in the Caribbean that we make for ourselves, but there are so many people who come to our countries and fall in love in with our countries and want a piece of it to take home. I want to give them that too.”
Today, however, she’s sharing the gift of knowledge with dozens of Belizean women who have gathered at the annual meeting. Among the lessons being taught is that in the world of entrepreneurship, women must come together in the way that men have, in order to promote and celebrate each other’s successes in business.
Patria-Kaye Aarons
“It’s a Caribbean thing that we hear men talk about their successes and someone who grandfathered them into that success. Some other man, some other male mentor that ushered them into that success and in the same vein, too often when we talk about women and women in business the story is very different. It’s very much about cutthroat, women against women, women being intimidated by other women. The same way that men have used this fellowship to grow not just their businesses but grow themselves, women need to do the same. We need to support each other, encourage each other, open doors for each other and not see each other as competition so much but recognize that there’s space for all of us to succeed and help each other.”
Organizer, Dr. Danalyn Myvett discussed the theme for the 2017 conference, as well as the choice of guest speakers.
Dr. Danalyn Myvett
“When we considered the conference for 2017, we made a decision that we were going to do it under the theme “Be Bold” and as a result of that it shaped all of the elements of what the program has become. Consequently, we looked at areas where we feel that women in the entrepreneurship space would want to hear and listen and learn, and as a result, we came up with bold connection, for example, where later this afternoon Mrs. Kim Aikman from the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry, she will be talking about that. What does networking do for you at the person level, at the organization level and through an organized sense of an association?”
The LeadHerShip Conference this year precedes Women Entrepreneurship Day which has been designated as November nineteenth. Reporting for News Five, I am Isani Cayetano.
