Nominated Senator Miraj Abdillahi has called on the Mombasa government to come up with strategies to empower women entrepreneurs.
Abdillahi on Friday said women are increasingly becoming business-oriented but lack marketing skills that can propel them to national and international markets.
She said they lack sufficient support from different stakeholders, including the county and national governments.
“When I visit other counties, I see other people craft county laws that make it easier for their people to do business as entrepreneurs. I would like that to be copied in Mombasa,” Abdillahi said.
She spoke at the graduation ceremony of the Majlis Beauty Studio and College at the Waterfront Banquet in Kizingo.
Women entrepreneurs showcased their products including lotions, hair products and packaged foodstuff, among others.
She called on MCAs, especially female ones, to draft laws that will support women entrepreneurship in the county, a call that was accepted by two MCAs who attended the function.
Kadzandani MCA Fatma Kushe and her nominated counterpart Hamida Noor said they are in the process of drafting bills in the county assembly that will promote women entrepreneurs.
“We need to ensure these women who design and make clothes in Mombasa are promoted. We need to start getting cloths from local women instead of going to shop in Dubai,” she said.
This, she said, will be made possible if women entrepreneurs will be given incentives to come up with and sell their products at affordable rates.
“We are also trying to organise a women business forum where we will invite business and financial experts who will give tips to our women on how to make their businesses more visible and successful so as to penetrate not only the local market but also the international one,” Kushe said.
She, however, said women should not subscribe to the common notion that women are their own worst enemies.
Abdillahi said more sensitisation is needed to ensure women in Mombasa take up the different funds set aside for them.
These include the Youth Fund and Women Enterprise Fund, among others, that she said can help women entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
Leila Awale, a prominent businesswoman in Mombasa, said women should learn to support each other in business. She said business does not thrive where there is extreme rivalry.
Khadija Salim, another businesswoman, said the problem with women is jealously among themselves.
She said that women rarely support each other in business and instead do whatever it takes to bring other women’s businesses down.
“In Islam, we believe everyone has their own success written for them. Even if it is under the mountain, you will get it someday. Let us not covet other people’s success to the extent of wanting to bring them down so as to remove competition,” Abdillahi said.
“If it is not yours, even when it gets to the mouth, it will fall down and you won’t have it."
