The Women’s Chamber of Industry & Commerce held their
First Members’ Day for the New Year at Cinnamon Grand
Hotel, 26th January 2015. This event made more interesting
by the participation of the members who attended the
Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) Regional
workshop.
Chairperson of WCIC Rifa Musthapha gave the welcome
address and emphasized that the WCIC would like to see
more participation from our dynamic members.
The event gave all the opportunity to hear first-hand stories
of fellow women entrepreneurs from Women’s Chambers of
Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.
First to share her experiences was Masooma Sibtain
Shoaib, the Founder of South Punjab Women’s Chamber of
Commerce and Industry. She spoke of the situation in Multan
and added that most women entrepreneurs have set up home
based industries. Masooma also revealed her endeavors to
start an organization to gather women entrepreneurs who
create the most exquisite embroidery and make them a part
of a larger and more empowered group.
Shamama Arbab from Peshawar was the second guest
speaker; her story was about her personal experience on
unifying women from her region in order to empower
them and therefore find better and larger markets for their
products.
Rita Bhandari of Nepal spoke next of this inaccessible
region, which has a heavy traffic of tourists because of the
Himalayas and the difficulties face by Women Entrepreneurs.
Final speaker, founder President of Bangladesh Women’s
Chamber of Commerce & Industry Selima Ahmad
recounted her story of breaking the chains of tradition. Hers
is an inspirational story of how she got married at the age
of 16 and became a mother at 17, leading to the final step
of that being woman entrepreneur, leading to the final step
that is a woman entrepreneur mentoring other such women
in Bangladesh. Hard work, perseverance and commitment
to her vision now has her as head of a 1500 strong member
organization in Dhaka. She is also the recipient of the
prestigious Oslo Business for Peace award along with Sir
Richard Branson.
Member of WCIC and Fashion Designer Yasisurie
Kiribandara gave us glimpse of her collection as a precursor
to the upcoming Colombo Fashion Week 2015.
Members dispersed having spent a fruitful evening of
fellowship and networking. We would like to see more
members attending such events. Please join us for the next
Members Day.
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