Development and mentoring of women, youth and differently-abled entrepreneurship in Batticaloa

• LIIN in partnership with World University Services Canada (WUSC) and Government of Canada (GAC) hosts Batticaloa phase of Its Regional Entrepreneurship Development Forum Series

LIIN, WUSC and GAC jointly organised and hosted the Regional Entrepreneurship Development Program targeting Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in Batticaloa.

Lanka Impact Investing Network (LIIN), the pioneer in promoting impact entrepreneurship and investing in Sri Lanka, recently held another phase of its regional entrepreneurship development program and forum was held at Green Garden Hotel Batticaloa on 27 August. The program and the forum series was conducted in partnership with World University Service of Canada (WUSC) and the Government of Canada. 

The Batticaloa forum primarily targeted underserved women entrepreneurs providing them the much-needed hand-holding support to navigate the turbulent times and equipping the entrepreneurs with a curated digital training offered by Daraz on accessing the digital market. 

The development of a platform with the concept of ‘Inclusive Entrepreneurship’ is the key objective of this project. The basis of this concept is to build the necessary environment for everyone to start and run a business of their choice, without the influence of personal backgrounds and peculiarities. 

This project has been started in Northern, Eastern, North Western, and Southern provinces, and in those regions, entrepreneurs from underprivileged groups such as women, youth, PWDs, and war victims are targeted. 

The project envisages to increase promote the entrepreneurship culture beyond the Western Province as it stands 90% of start-ups funded are in the Western Province showcasing the much the needed requirement to create the entrepreneurship eco-system beyond the Western Province. Under this, a selected group of entrepreneurs who participated in the series of Jaffna, Trincomalee, and Matara regional forums and the recently held Batticaloa regional forum will be granted access to a one-stop Digital Hub that will be launched soon. 

Their videotaped entrepreneurship stories will be included, and this central Digital Hub will be used to connect them to business mentors, open them to domestic and foreign markets, connect them to financial institutions and investors, and link them with business service providers such as logistics. In that way, providing a digital solution to most of the problems faced by regional underprivileged entrepreneurs will ensue in the future.