Bolivian employers' organization FEPSC starts incubator for women entrepreneurs

The Bolivian employers' organization Federación de Empresas Privadas de Santa Cruz (FEPSC) soon will start with an incubator for women entrepreneurs. The FEPSC recently signed an agreement with representatives of the trade union COD, the UPSA university and the vocational training institute Infocal.

UPSA has experience in preparing female university students for entrepreneurship. This experience is now being used for a pilot project of the vocational training students of Infocal, many of whom already try their luck as a self-employed beautician or seamstress.

The majority of mini-companies in Bolivia are run by women. However, many of these mini-companies are cases of self-employment rather than of entrepreneurship. The aim of the incubator is to provide women students of Infocal with more knowledge and skills so that the businesses they create are more robust and might even grow.

If the pilot is successful, it is easy to set up similar incubators in other branches of Infocal in Bolivia. In time, the projects can also be opened up to male students.

The project of the incubator is an idea of Milka Costas, who participated earlier this year in an intensive ITC-ILO-training ‘Women empowerment’ in Turin at the invitation of DECP.