The Coca-Cola Foundation on Friday launched its first cohort of 687 recipients of its Jamii Femme program in Kenya.
“If it does not touch, then it does not spark! These words marked the launch of Jamii Femme, in collaboration with Women in Africa (WIA), aimed at empowering women to thrive and transform the world through their businesses.
Jamii Femme program is a Pan-African program through which the Coca-Cola Foundation and WIA seek to empower 20,000 African female entrepreneurs across ten African countries over the next three years.
Speaking at the launch event held at the University of Nairobi, Vice President of East and Central Africa Franchise Debra Mallowah noted that this program is critical to achieving equality.
“We are excited to roll out this new initiative as it will play a critical role in accelerating our focus on how we impact women and the communities we operate in,” she said.
“We are particularly happy to have Kenya as one of the beneficiary countries in phase 1, as it will enable us to build on the previous milestones from our five by 20 programme (empower 5 million women by 2020 worldwide), where we were able to empower up to 800,000 women in Kenya alone economically, and 2 million Africa-wide in 5 years.”
The event attracted, among other dignitaries, the second lady, Dorcas Wanjiku Gachagua, who acknowledged the program as a growth engine towards increasing the capacity of women entrepreneurs and playing a more significant role in their economy.
Up to 2000 Kenyan female entrepreneurs will benefit from the year-long program through education, financial literacy, entrepreneurial training, and mentorship.
The workshops, which started in September 2022, will give the women the tools they need to develop their leadership and managerial skills and approach the design of original concepts.
“Upon completion of the 4-month online course, 60 entrepreneurs from the first cohort will be selected for a 2-week accelerator programme and assigned coaches to mentor them,” she added.
“In addition, the program will earmark grants awarded to these beneficiaries to support business development further, thereby increasing their impact on communities.”
The program will admit its second cohort of women in January 2023.
All eligible women are welcome to send their applications for the second phase. For more information on the program, click here: https://wia-initiative.com/jamii-femmes-eng/
