U.S.-funded Women’s Entrepreneurial Center Opens in Hanoi

The Women’s Entrepreneurial Centers of Resources, Education, Access, and Training for Economic Empowerment (WECREATE), an initiative of the U.S. Department of State, has been opened in Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi. The development of the WECREATE center in Vietnam was announced by U.S. President Barack Obama during his historic trip to Vietnam in May 2016, the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi said in a press release. The WECREATE center will serve as an entrepreneurial community center for women who are interested in starting or expanding an existing business. Under the Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI), the center was included as one of six signature projects of the Initiative agreed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and LMI Foreign Ministers in 2014. The center in Vietnam is the second of five under the Connectivity Pillar of LMI. The first was in Cambodia, establishing itself as a fully self-sustaining entity. The center in Laos is scheduled to open in late 2017. These centers will help to connect local entrepreneurs with mentors in private companies form and develop business skills and ideas which in turn will feed into the local economies. Women entrepreneurs are integral to stable and thriving formal economies, but often face barriers, including gender-based, cultural and social discrimination, so the centers are designed to help women access essential resources to overcome these barriers. Members of the WECREATE community have full access to mentor and coaching networks, business building programs, co-working spaces, Incubator SpaceNetworking & Events, visual thinking tools, and day care. The WECREATE center also houses the StartUp Academy, which is a capacity building program for women business-owners which supports them in transitioning from operating in the informal economy to formally registered companies. In Vietnam, female entrepreneurs are taking charge at 25% of Vietnamese firms, especially at small and medium enterprises (SMEs). (tuotrenews.vn Oct 22)