7 Ways Our Small Business Program Fosters High-Impact Entrepreneurship

Originally posted on Starfish’s blog. Starfish works in Guatemala to unlock and maximize the potential of young women to lead transformational change.

Women face significant obstacles and inequalities in the workplace—we know this—and indigenous women in Guatemala face even more disadvantages. Ninety percent of Guatemalan adolescents receive no job-readiness training. In a country where roughly half the population is Mayan, only 12 percent of small businesses’ employees are indigenous.

We call the young women in our program “Girl Pioneers” because they are truly trailblazers. We measure our impact by a specific set of goals for our Starfish graduates, one of which is economic autonomy and mobility—can she choose where she lives, where she works, and the type of life she wants to lead?

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor found that women in Latin America and the Caribbean “face much more complex challenges in the formal economy than women in more developed countries, such as: a lack of policies and programs to support and encourage entrepreneurial activity, excessive norms and regulations, and restricted access to credit.”

In September 2015, we launched our Small Businesses Program after witnessing that many of our Starfish graduates wanted to start their own businesses but didn’t have access to the aforementioned resources. To date, Starfish graduates have opened and continue to operate seven small businesses.

Here are seven fundamental ways our program fosters high-impact entrepreneurship….

Head on over to the Starfish Blog to learn the seven fundamental ways this program fosters high-impact entrepreneurship.