By Nangamso Mabindla
1 September 2008

WOMEN’S Month ended in style with an information-sharing seminar at the Indoor Sports Centre in Mdantsane on Friday, 29 August.

Business women from the area were invited to the event by the municipality. Those who attended ranged from the formal sector to traders in the informal sector. The City also invited speakers from various organisations to motivate the women.

Groups attending the seminar included the Small Enterprise Development Agency, the Eastern Cape Development Corporation and the Department of Trade and Industry.

Speaking at the event, Buffalo City councillor Andile Ntoni said that celebrating Women’s Month was the right thing to do. “We as a municipality believe in the constitutional principles of equality and we do not discriminate. There are policies that we have come up with; and we want to implement these for the benefit of the people.”

Some of these policies, which included the Gender Strategy, were already in place but Ntoni said more needed to be done.

Turning his attention to some of the initiatives aimed at helping female-owned businesses, he encouraged women to make use of the Mayoral Women Empowerment Fund.

“We had 11 co-operatives from Mdantsane applying for the fund, and they are all here. We also invited hawkers because we want to see how the City can assist them.”

Business woman Vuyo Zitumane, the chairperson of the Eastern Cape Tourism Board, said that women wanted to contribute to the province’s economic growth.

“Women should be liberated economically because they are hit the hardest by poverty. There should be a 50 percent split when it comes to business and social initiatives.”

Zitumane commended corporations like the Eastern Cape Development Corporation for initiatives aimed at supporting female-owned businesses.

“In some municipalities procurement policies are leaning towards the empowerment of women and I want to use this opportunity to urge women to grab these with both hands.”