The #WomenRiseAboveCovid series empowers women-led MSMEs transition to digital.

Connected Women can now reach and educate more Women, thanks to an exciting new partnership with European Union-UN Women program, WeEmpowerAsia.

This partnership will champion business enhancement, transformation with digital platform skills for women entrepreneurs. The goal is for women to be economically empowered during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. A series of talks and panel discussions will include:

• Offline to Online Business Transition
• Learn and maximize digital platforms for MSMEs
• Open up networking and business opportunities
• Teaching and refining IT skills for women
• Tapping online work opportunities

Connected Women Founder Gina Romero expressed her excitement about the partnership which will enable them to reach out to more women in the Philippines, especially those running their own MSMEs.

“We know that there are many women entrepreneurs who need to transition their brick and mortar businesses online and become digital marketing savvy” Romero said.

Romero also said that this is applicable for startups and women who feel that they are not in a stable place at work and wish to build their own businesses.

The first two events will be held on July 8th and 15th and they will be part of the Connected Women global meetup. The following sessions will feature smaller groups to discuss industry-specific challenges, such as tourism.

Succeeding events will be held in August, September, and November. To keep updated with these workshops and talks, follow the Connected Women Facebook page for more information.

Connected Women’s response to the community

The series of workshops is Connected Women’s answer to its community’s clamor to become more prepared for the “new normal”.

Thousands of members of the Connected Women community were affected by the lockdown, especially those in severely impacted industries.

Romero explained that the online job market has the capacity to employ these women, which is why a lot of Connected Women’s programs focus on digital upskilling and digital marketing, namely:

• Artificial Intelligence Data Labelling – This market is expected to hit USD 1.6 billion by 2025. They include jobs that need humans to do tagging, classification, moderation, and processing of images for AI.
• Executive Virtual Assistant – Customer service, data entry, and internet research which can be done remotely are often needed by big businesses. The Philippines is the 6th fastest-growing freelance market, just behind the US, Australia, UK, Canada.
• Remote Officers, Specialists, Agents – This involves transitioning office-based teams to remote teams. And there is evidence supporting that this could be a new trend.

Tech giant Facebook already has a ten-year plan in place to move its workforce to work remotely. Twitter and Google are also embracing this new trend, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is expected that more companies will be following suit.

Romero explained that there is also a need for companies to understand the importance of providing remote and flexible work to retain their women talents in the workforce. By doing this, they can also open up their talent pool to people who may not physically attend work in the workplace.

The drive for inclusive, sustainable growth

Connected Women’s partnership with the joint European Union-UN Women program WeEmpowerAsia is a step towards inclusive and sustainable growth in various communities, companies, and enterprises with women as its drivers.

UN Women’s Ma. Rosalyn Mesina, WeEmpowerAsia Philippines Country Program Manager, said that she is very happy to support Connected Women and provide more opportunities for women to participate in more structured discussions when it comes to transitioning women-led and women-owned enterprises from offline businesses to online businesses.

Mesina emphasized the importance of networking and maximizing digital platforms for women owners of small businesses.

“I am really amazed hearing and reading all the comments and [I would like to] congratulate Connected Women on all these efforts that you are able to provide a safe space to discuss a lot of topics from professional activities down to the issues of motherhood and how do we do self-care on our own,” she said.

“I am already seeing a lot of very very successful women in the space who can be mentors and who can really inspire others to do the same,” Mesina continued.

As a group, UN Women is an entity dedicated to gender equality and women’s empowerment. It has four strategic priorities and one of which is for women to have income security, decent work, and economic autonomy.

WE Empower Asia is a key initiative that translates and articulates UN Women’s Commitment under the Women’s Economic Empowerment focus. With support from the European Union, it runs in seven Asian countries, including the Philippines.

For more information about this partnership and the series of workshops, visit https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en

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