The District Senior Information Officer of Mafeteng, Mr Rorisang Manka, says women are the powerful people ever and ought to be given opportunities and supported within various sectors to excel while at the same time contributing to country’s economic growth.
Speaking at the two-day Workshop Economic Empowerment training, he said they intended to improve livelihoods of women and encourage them to join the rest of the world in industries as they have all the potential and knowledge of managing big businesses.
“Strength of women is also shown where they practically run households, while also running businesses,” he said.
He called on women to stand and fight for their rights and learn to support each other while at the same time strengthening their voice rather than individually working with hope to transform lives.
He quoted Sesotho idiom ”lefu la noha ke ho tsamaea e le ngoe,” (which is translated that people cannot work as individuals/silos) but instead Unity is power.
He advised them to support each other as currently there are some local clauses in constitutions being reviewed to support them
Majority of the participants have agreed that women are born powerful but do not support each other instead they prefer supporting men, hence more leading positions are occupied by men even though they have equal knowledge and skills.
They however called on the government of Lesotho and private institutions to recognise women through uplifting them by giving them all needed support either financially or other wise.
They also identified a problem of men who are underestimating their effort of joining taxi operation industries with the ideas that only men are entitled in managing such industry, calling to government of Lesotho to enforce laws that support women through provision of funds with low interests while at the same time ensuring security of business established by women.
On the other hand one of the participants representing youth has called on the government of Lesotho through relevant ministry to capacitate of all women in business through providing them with trainings that would strengthen their businesses as majority joined in to fight hunger and poverty not knowing business management and bookkeeping.
The training was organized by the Ministry of Gender, Youth and Social Development as part of women empowerment and as an effort to curb barriers that deter women from working.
Source: Lesotho News Agency (LENA) 30/8/2024
